


What lips my lips have kissed (and where, and why)

by powerfulowl (StuckyFlangst)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ableist Language, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Brainwashing, But still Captain America, But still the Winter Soldier, Canon-Typical Violence, Conspiracy, Correspondence, Drunk Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, Homophobic Language, M/M, Military, Minor Character Death, Modern Bucky Barnes, Modern Steve Rogers, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Sniper Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Top Steve Rogers, Torture, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:40:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 41,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27322873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StuckyFlangst/pseuds/powerfulowl
Summary: Steve reached up to kiss him again, softer this time, savoring the slide of their tongues, the press of their bellies. Steve was smaller than Bucky but under his hands Bucky was the supple, malleable one. Steve didn’t know, really, at that point, the shape of his own desires – they were still somewhat shadowy to him – thoughts that came unbidden, images that drew him. But they first took a more solid form in the shape of Bucky Barnes in the moonlight, pressed against a tree.-----Steve Rogers finally gets the courage to kiss Bucky Barnes, the most beautiful boy in school, the night before he leaves town forever. Soon these two boys will be soldiers in a war neither is sure they should be fighting. Steve Rogers will be transformed into The Captain, soldier for SHIELD and the World Security Council. Bucky Barnes will be a sniper in the US Army.The Winter Soldier catches the hint of memories in the scent of pine, in a car, in a hotel room. Can Captain Rogers find his true love again?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 67
Kudos: 66





	1. I only know that summer sang in me a little while

**Author's Note:**

> This is a modern AU, but canon adjacent. This chapter largely covers Steve and Bucky when they're 18, but will jump forward in time.
> 
> I have chosen not to warn. The story is now largely mapped out, and the main archive warning type content will be the violence, in particular some descriptions of Bucky being made into the Winter Soldier. I will warn specifically for that.
> 
> I will continue to update tags, and warn at the start of any chapters. Please enjoy this soft beginning.

Captain Steve Rogers was a big guy. Everyone knew that. Really big. He’d been in an experimental program at the Academy - the Supersoldier Program. No one really knew what it entailed. Drugs maybe. Sure, he worked out a lot, but he wasn’t a body builder or anything. And he was big. Arms like tree trunks, chest for miles. Though his waist was almost dainty.

No one really asked about it. Not that he was scary. He was big, sure, but unfailingly polite. A bit serious – he spent a lot of time with a furrow between his brows. And if he thought you said something unkind, treated someone unjustly, compromised where you shouldn’t, he would look _disappointed_.

He had his elite crew – the Widow, the Falcon, Hawkeye – and various people who came and went depending on what the mission needed. They seemed to be able to get him to laugh. Sometimes they would all be down the Triskelion together at a corner booth. Everyone kept a polite distance from them, but they noticed how the Widow’s smirk could draw a deep, joyful laugh out of the Captain. Or how when Thor visited from Europe – the only guy that was bigger than the Captain – they would down more beers together than anyone else could and sing weird Nordic folk songs together and laugh in those huge chests.

That was the thing about working for SHIELD. They worked together, they all lived cheek to cheek in Brookville, which was a company town. But unlike other company towns, no one knew anybody’s story – where they came from, what they’d done before.

Steve Rogers was big. His body was a weapon. His strength was perfectly controlled. His hands were calloused and his voice gentle but commanding. He had made certain choices that had brought him here and he accepted that.

Sometimes, though, on hot summer nights, he’d smell the cypress and remember when he was smaller, when he had burned with love, and he'd think of Bucky Barnes.

\-----

It was a late summer party. Already there were fewer people there than might have been a few months back. Over summer people has drifted off on final vacations with their parents, or first vacations alone, or left town altogether.

But it was still loud and hot, the smell of beer and sweat and chlorine mixing in the humid night. Even in the backyard the press of bodies was thick and the air barely moved.

Steve was pretty drunk. Not falling over drunk, but he was definitely inappropriately long stares at Bucky Barnes drunk.

Steve hadn’t been to a lot of parties over the eternal but fleeting years of high school. He wasn’t invited to many.

Bucky Barnes was. And Bucky Barnes also went to school and was sometimes in Steve’s classes. And Steve – skinny, righteous, loud and tragically bisexual with hair that never stood straight and a face surely only his mother thought was handsome – might have had a long standing crush on Bucky – slender, kind, quiet and triumphantly bisexual with hair than fell in chestnut waves around a face the whole world thought was handsome.

Now they were done with school, and Steve hadn’t seen Bucky much over the summer. A glimpse of his bronzed body arching off the diving board while Steve was huddled in the shade smeared with sunscreen, a sighting of him in the mall walking with a group of friends in a tank top and shorts revealing the soft curves of his surprisingly muscular thighs. And the one glorious time he came into the icecream parlour while Steve was working and had beamed at him and asked how he was and ordered a caramel sundae and sat eating it by the window.

But here Steve was, one night before he left this nowhere town, hopefully forever, invited because numbers were down and Brock Rumlow still wanted his party to heave out the final days of summer.

Steve was hanging on the edges of the party with Natasha – who turned up wherever she wanted to be. She, as usual, looked smoking hot in black leather shorts, a pink midriff top with ‘Slut’ in glittery black across the front and high-top pink sneakers. Her hair was blonde this week and in a perky ponytail. She was also terrifying and not one of the boy-men at the part would ever be brave enough to approach her.

She and Steve had been inseparable since seventh grade when she had kicked Brock in the head while he was laying into Steve behind the sheds on the playing fields and he had snarled at her, _I had him on the ropes_ through the blood pouring from his nose. _No you didn’t_ she had scoffed, pulling him to his shaky feet.

‘Why are we here, Natasha?’ Steve asked. ‘We both hate Brock.’

Natasha smirked at him around her pink Vodka Cruiser.

‘So you can gather the courage to make a pass at Bucky Barnes.’

Steve glared at her and then looked back at Bucky and sighed. Bucky was wearing tight denim cutoffs and a red tank top. Those beautiful thighs were stretching for weeks and his hair was mussed up and sweaty.

Part of Steve was intensely aware of his own knobbly knees and bony shoulders, his straw hair and resting bitch face. He was wearing blue shorts with white stars that were supposed to be tight but hung looser on him, and a white t-shirt with a cactus printed on it – a gift from Natasha who thought it was hilarious for some reasons. This spiny body that carried him awkwardly and defiantly through the world – through track classes where he always came in last, wheezing and clutching a stitch, through fevers and hospital visits, through begrudging kisses and awkward fumbles in dark rooms all the while thinking _it must be more than this_.

Another, larger, possibly drunker part of Steve was filled with the long drink that was Bucky Barnes, summer browned and laughing and beautiful.

So when Bucky turned away from the crowd gathered around him and caught Steve’s eye and gave a soft little smirk, Steve smirked back. Their eyes held for a moment then Bucky turned casually and strolled across the yard, away from Steve, towards the gate in the fence that everyone knew backed onto the park. His firm but oh so squeezable ass cheeks flexed in his tiny shorts. Like, so tiny. Steve’s heart was pounding. Bucky had definitely smirked, right?

‘So you have _some_ game, Steve Rogers,’ Natasha said with a smile, pinching his arm.

‘You saw that too?’ Steve asked. ‘That wasn’t just a drunken hallucination?’

Natasha laughed, throaty and full-bellied. ‘No, Steve. I’ve been telling you – he totally makes eyes at you in English when you lecture everyone about the lack of diversity on the syllabus.’

Steve glared at her.

Then he looked back to where Bucky was exiting the yard – he turned his face for a moment and caught Steve’s eye again, biting his full bottom lip and then slipping through the gate.

And Steve knew he had to do it. What was there to lose? He was leaving town forever tomorrow. He didn’t want to look back and think _maybe if_ every time his thoughts turned to James Barnes. So he knocked back the rest of his beer, put the bottle down under the tree and, with a departing fist bump from Natasha, sauntered across the lawn.

Maybe some people had watched Bucky Barnes leaving, wondering where he was going, what rendezvous he was heading to. But nobody spared a glance at Steve Rogers.

There was a sick feeling in his belly when he thought about Bucky going out there to meet someone else– maybe he’d already been flirting, already made an arrangement, maybe Steve had this all wrong. _Probably_ Steve had this all wrong. Bucky was leagues out of his league. Everyone wanted Bucky. He could have anyone. Why would he want Steve Rogers?

But this was a chance. And Steve wasn’t a coward. He wasn’t going to go to his death bed thinking _I could have_.

Steve pushed the gate open and stepped into the park. There was an open space with benches, a playground, and further in stands of trees which tonight and other summer nights were full of the rustles of teenagers making out.

Steve glanced around, clenching and unclenching his fist, hearing his breath loud in his ears. Then from the shadow of the fence a figure emerged and moved towards him, coalescing into the form of Bucky Barnes.

He, too, looked nervous, lowering his eyes and biting at his bottom lip. _Why would Bucky every be nervous? Who wouldn’t want Bucky?_

‘Hi Steve,’ he said.

‘Hi,’ Steve managed to croak out, pulse accelerating at how shy, how _soft_ Bucky looked. His heart hammered against his narrow chest, threatening to jump out his mouth.

He looked at Bucky, _stared_ , drank in the sheen of his skin in the light spilling from the party, the shadows on his face sharpening his cheekbones, the fall of his bangs across his eyes.

Then he held out his hand, compelled by Bucky’s beauty to leap into the unknown, the almost impossible. And Bucky sighed sweetly and took Steve’s hand. His skin was soft and his hands a little damp.

Steve took a shuddering breath, still failing to make words, and turned towards the trees, past the playground, leading Bucky without a word. Words were impossible right now – would break the spell cast by the moon and the dying days of summer. And Bucky followed. When Steve looked back over his shoulder Bucky still had that shy smile playing around his lips and he was staring at Steve with something like wonder, his eyes wide in the moonlight. Steve’s chest filled with warmth and he stared back, letting all his longing, hidden away for so many years, spill out. He felt his face soften and his own lips curve.

He turned again to navigate their way past the empty swings, across the grass until they reach the trees. Steve knew there were other people in here too, but in this corner, among the smell of cypress and summer, there was just him and Bucky Barnes, shining like the moon.

And all of Steve’s uncertainties slipped away. Maybe it was the booze, maybe the fact he was leaving tomorrow and had nothing to lose, but he was suddenly surrendering to the hot, sweet, liquid desire he had shoved into dark secret corners (his bedroom when the lights were out and he couldn’t go to sleep, his hands trembling as he gathered himself in a dirty toilet cubicle at school). He filled to the brim and overflowed, pushing Bucky back into the tree, grabbing his face and pulling him down.

For a moment they both paused, lips with only a whisper between them. Their torsos pressed together and Steve could feel Bucky’s sternum rising and falling rapidly. Then Steve pressed their mouths together, testing Bucky’s lower lip – sucking gently at first. Bucky moaned a little and Steve would die for that sound, sucked harder to hear the moan deepen, sharpen. He pushed his tongue, electric with want, between Bucky’s pliant lips as his fingers dived deeper into Bucky’s sweat-dampened hair, nails scratching at his scalp. And they were kissing, kissing; wet and soft and sharp; the texture of tongues, the sweet taste of strawberries from whatever Bucky was drinking, the tang of blood rising closer to the surface of his kin when Steve bit down on his tongue.

Bucky’s hands ran desperately across Steve’s chest, his ribs, his shoulderblades. Steve felt his cock swelling in his shorts and he pushed forward and ground against Bucky’s thigh with all the force of his compact body, feeling the sharp of his hip bone grinding on Bucky’s demin-clad erection.

‘ _Steve_ ,’ Bucky moaned and Steve knew for sure that Bucky wanted him and his heart hammered louder. He kissed with all the force of six years of longing, wet and sloppy, his hands under Bucky’s shirt squeezing the soft flesh on his sides running up over the curve of his pecs and pinching his nipples. Bucky groaned and writhed, bucking his hips a little.

‘You like that, huh?’ Steve rasped, pulling his face away and squeezing harder, watching Bucky’s face – his eyes squeezing shut and his lips parting in a pained cry.

‘Yes Steve, please,’ Bucky’s eyes fluttered and his tongue darted across his teeth, his head arching back. Steve dove his head down to plant his mouth on the expanse of Bucky’s neck, licking across his hammering pulse then sinking his teeth into the soft of his muscle. And the noises Bucky was making were killing him. He wanted to devour him. Steve bit down harder, sucking a mark, and another and another, tasting salt and sweat on his tongue.

He reached down and tugged Bucky’s tank top up, pulling it over Bucky’s head then pressing his mouth to Bucky’s collarbones, the soft flesh of his chest until he hit the pink, hard nipple and bit down until Bucky keened.

‘ _Steve steve steve steve steve_ ,’ Bucky was whimpering his name and it was the best, purest sound Steve had ever heard. It was a treasure he had now no one could ever steal from him.

Without hesitation Steve pulled his own t-shirt off, for the first time ever feeling wanted, _needed_ as Bucky ran his hands across the lines of Steve’s ribs, rubbed softy over Steve’s own nipples, his chest.

Steve reached up to kiss him again, softer this time, savouring the slide of their tongues, the press of their bellies. Steve was smaller than Bucky but under his hands Bucky was the supple, malleable one. Steve didn’t know, really, at that point, the shape of his own desires – they were still somewhat shadowy to him – thoughts that came unbidden, images that drew him. But they first took a more solid form in the shape of Bucky Barnes in the moonlight, pressed against a tree.

‘Steve, I want – I want –’ Bucky’s voice was thick and shaky, a little like he was on the verge of tears. Steve’s breath was loud in his own ears and he trembled with this new feeling of power in his hands. His eyes roamed over Bucky – so beautifully firm but ductile, lean but curving.

‘Take off your shorts, Bucky,’ Steve said in a low, commanding voice he didn’t even know he possessed. Bucky bit down on his lip and nodded, unzipping the shorts and wiggling out of them.

And oh god he had a soft lacy red thong on underneath. Steve was going to die. Right here.

Bucky was looking at him shyly again, as if seeking Steve’s approval.

‘You look incredible Bucky – you – you keep those on,’ Steve said huskily with a little tremble in his voice.

He was so hard right now. His own boxer briefs were basic cotton and his shorts were loose. What the fuck was he doing?

 _What he wanted to do more than anything_.

Steve took a shaky breath and crowded Bucky close to the tree, trapping him between his arms, palms resting on the rough trunk on either side. So Bucky was bigger than him? That didn’t seem to matter right now.

‘What do you want, Bucky? You said you wanted something?’ Steve tried to level his voice. Sound calm, in control. He was so turned on he could barely see straight – his whole body was a nerve ending attuned to every shiver of Bucky’s body, every wet movement of Bucky’s lips.

‘I want –’ Bucky looked a little sad, a little uncertain, a little overwhelmed.

‘You wanna drop to your knees and suck my cock with that pretty mouth of yours,’ Steve ordered, much to his own surprise.

Bucky almost shouted, ‘ _Yes!_ ’ and fell gracefully and gratefully to his knees.

Steve stayed still, hands pressed to the tree, looking down at Bucky, who reached his hands out a little shakily and tugged at Steve’s waist band. Bucky looked up through his eyelashes, seeking reassurance.

‘Yes Bucky, like that,’ Steve said, digging his fingers into the bark.

Bucky easily pulled down Steve’s shorts and briefs, eyes widening and lips parting as Steve’s pink, weeping cock sprang free.

Bucky delicately stepped Steve’s feet out of the shorts then paused, lips parted, hands on his thighs. His own cock was straining against those lacy panties and Steve wanted to tear them off, to squeeze Bucky until he writhed and screamed and came in Steve’s grip.

Instead he ran his right hand through Bucky’s hair, let him nuzzle Steve’s palm.

 _Bucky_. Bucky Barnes who smiled at him in math class in seventh grade, before he’d met Natasha and when he still sat by himself every lunchtime out the back of the library. Bucky who held out a hand to him when he tripped and fell on the basketball court during PE, even though the others were laughing. Bucky Barnes who danced from the first song to the last at every school dance, every party, who always had someone’s hand to hold, someone to kiss, someone to slip away with and come back later flushed and glowing. Bucky who sang like an old-time crooner and looked like a movie star. Who worked weekend in his Dad’s garage and usually had grease under his nails. Who had three younger sisters who adored him. Who’s house wasn’t so nice but who was popular enough to hang out with the kids who lived in the houses which backed onto the park and got cars as sixteenth birthday gifts. Who was trying to build a motorcycle.

Bucky Barnes who was here, on his knees, lips pressed to Steve’s sweaty palm.

‘So Bucky, you going to suck me?’ Steve asked, pressing his thumb between Bucky’s lips. Bucky trembled and nodded, running the tip of his tongue over the tip of Steve’s thumb. Then Steve pulled his hand away and Bucky moved his mouth to whisper across Steve’s cock, repeating the motion of the flicker of his tongue on the tip, lapping at the pre-come that had gathered there.

Steve let out a throaty groan, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth. He wanted this to _last_. He didn’t want to come right now over Bucky’s mouth, lips, chin, face – _fuck_. He squeezed his eyes and took a shaky breath, inhaling deeply as Bucky continued with the little licks, exploring. He held the base of Steve’s cock in his hand and gave a long lick along the underside, again circling the tip, then folding his lips and lowering his head to suck Steve in.

Steve looked down and _yes yes yes_ Bucky’s mouth pink and wet around him, moving lower each time as he bobbed his head, still moving his tongue, making little sounds in his throat.

Steve was – Steve was nothing but the feeling of Bucky’s mouth wet and smooth – tendrils of liquid pleasure pooling in his gut in his tightening balls in the clench of his ass.

He lowered his hand again, gathering up Bucky’s hair and tugging and Bucky _moaned_ and his eyelids fluttered and he sucked a little harder a little deeper. And then Steve pulled him off and pushed him down again, meeting Bucky’s mouth with the thrust of his hips. Steve was fucking him, fucking Bucky’s mouth and Bucky was whimpering and choking a little as Steve’s cock hit the tight entrance to his throat, gasping when Steve pulled back wrenching hard at Bucky’s hair.

Steve was grunting whispering, ‘Yeah baby, so good, look at that mouth, you like it so much, want me to fuck you want to choke, want to taste me –’. Tears gathered in Bucky’s eyes and trickled down his face and Steve could see how his hips thrust helplessly in the air, his cock straining against the lace.

‘You can grab your cock, Bucky, through your panties.’ Bucky sobbed and slobbered around Steve and fumbled with his free hand to squeeze his dick. Steve imagined how the texture of the lace must rub, how he must ache.

‘That’s it Buck, just squeeze,’ Steve’s voice was strained. The image of Bucky holding himself, squeezing hard and desperate, the red of the lace against his summer browned skin – he must sunbake naked, or in a thong, Steve thought.

At that image he thrust harder, deeper, taking both hands to Bucky’s head, delighting in the rhythm of his throat spasming, choking, then gasping for breath when Steve pulled out. Again and again and again and Steve was coming coming as Bucky swallowed around him, spilling down his throat.

‘So good, Bucky, so good,’ Steve whispered as Bucky choked and swallowed, sucking feebly and hungrily as Steve’s cock pulsed and softened. Steve trembled a little as he guided Bucky’s head back, his spent cock over sensitive. Spent, yes, but still hungry for Bucky.

Bucky looked up at him plaintively, lips glistening in the moonlight and come and spit shining on his chin. He whined and wiggled his hips, cock still clutched in his hand.

‘Stand up,’ Steve said gently, ‘I still gotta take care of you, Bucky.’

Bucky smiled and nodded, clambering to his feet, looking down at Steve with damp eyes.

Steve kissed those fucked out lips, licking and tasting himself, dirty and desperate. He trailed a hand down Bucky’s chest – the soft hair curling there, the trail down from his belly button. Bucky’s hand fell away as Steve reached the waistband of the panties.

He didn’t have it in him to draw this out anymore. He broke the kiss and looked down to watch his hand dive into Bucky’s panties and pull his cock out. Bucky moaned and Steve spread pre-cum across the tip, using his thumb to coat along the base. Then with a firm grip he fisted around Bucky and pumped hard and fast, his other hand gripping the nape of Bucky’s neck.

Bucky was grunting, sobbing, throat wrecked, hands on Steve’s shoulders, eyes glazed. He gave a broken cry of ‘ _Stevie_ ’ and then spilled over Steve, over himself, both of them watching with wondering eyes.

There was a moment of stillness as Bucky softened in his hand, then Steve ran his sticky palm along the line of Bucky’s hip, the curve of his ass, to rest in the small of his back.

They panted in time, hot and damp as the air. Then they were embracing, pressed sweaty and naked together. Bucky’s mouth was close to Steve’s ear, Steve’s head was buried in Bucky’s collarbone.

‘I always thought you’d be good at that, Steve Rogers,’ Bucky whispered softly.

Steve laughed a little tearily into Bucky’s skin. He couldn’t manage words, all of a sudden.

Bucky pulled back and put a finger under Steve’s chin, making their eyes meet.

‘Any chance we could do that again?’ Bucky asked. He was so fucking beautiful, and life was so fucking unfair.

Steve shook his head. ‘I’m leaving tomorrow. I’ve got a scholarship to the SHIELD Academy.’

Which had seemed like the most exciting, most important thing in the world a few hours ago. Before Bucky Barnes had knelt down in front of him under a cypress tree.

Bucky smiled a little. ‘You’re real smart, Steve Rogers, you’ll be famous one day – change the world.’ His voice seemed a bit sad, but his eyes glowed as he gazed at Steve’s face.

‘You’re the special one, Bucky Barnes. Everyone knows that,’ Steve grumbled, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s waist. They were naked, in a park, but Steve didn’t care if anyone saw them. It was like they were wrapped in a cocoon built from moonlight. Maybe it could stop time, too, and they would never make it to tomorrow.

‘Nah,’ Bucky ran his fingers along Steve’s crooked spine, tracing it like he wanted to memorise it. ‘I’m just the handsome kid from high school that you’ll run into years later and I’ll be ordinary and run down and you’ll wonder why I seemed so special.’

Steve felt so _sad_ – all the things he didn’t know about Bucky Barnes – things that make him think he could ever be ordinary.

‘You’ll always be special to me, Buck. This will always be special.’ Steve kissed him again, and they pressed against one another, skin flushed with sex and youth and summer. This kiss was gentle and warm and Steve knew that if they were together for 20 years or 50 years this is the kiss that would last them all that time.

Steve felt the cocoon dissolving as the sounds of the party in the distance started to intrude. Other noises in the trees – gasps and murmurs and loud laughter.

They reluctantly pulled apart and rummaged on the ground for their clothes.

Steve frowned as Bucky zips up the shorts. ‘How do those even work?’

Bucky laughed, loud and delighting and Steve grinned. He hardly ever made anyone laugh, except Natasha. And that was usually _at_ him.

They wandered, hand in hand, until Bucky tugged Steve towards the swings. They sat down and started swinging gently, facing away from the fence and the party. Steve wondered idly what Natasha is up to. They were having breakfast tomorrow before Steve heads off. She was going to some institute in Russia that her rich uncle – a high up in the FSB – is paying for. There was deep family stuff there; Steve knew she doesn’t want to go. But her father relied on her uncle in some way, and Natasha was the necessary sacrifice on the altar of her older brother’s prospects to make it in the USA.

But right then, he was on the swings with Bucky Barnes.

‘I’ve always had a crush on you,’ he confessed – finding it easier to talk when he was gazing out across the park.

‘It’s good you made eyes at me tonight, then,’ Bucky said, a smile in his voice, ‘I would’ve hated if you’d left without kissing me.’

Steve smiled, glad that Bucky didn’t say _I wish you’d said something sooner_ because maybe that was true but Steve didn’t want to think about that.

The sun was coming up by the time Steve climbed back through his bedroom window. He’d sent Natasha a thumbs up and an eggplant emoji hours back. Though he and Bucky had just wandered, talking, through the park, through the empty streets.

‘What’re you doing this year?’ Steve asked. Bucky gave a loose shrug.

‘I’ll work for my Dad I think, at the garage, try to get some money together. Finish my motorbike. Maybe if I save a bit I can go to college, but with all my sisters still at home Mum and Dad can’t manage without me.’

Steve nodded. There was just him and his mum, and SHIELD offered him a scholarship. He’d discovered they had an Intelligence stream which didn’t require you to meet all the physical criteria of the other programs. He’d been so excited to serve – to join an agency he really believed were on the side of right. SHIELD was a little shadowy but Steve’s research indicated they were mostly focused on organisations like HYDRA – who were irrefutably Nazis – and the weapons trade.

Doubts stirred in part of his mind still – was another institution, organisation really the way to solve these problems? Did little Steve Rogers just want to be a hero, looked up to?

He told Bucky about these doubts and Bucky listened and told him he just has to follow his heart.

‘You always seem to know what’s right Steve, you’ve got an instinct for it. Just don’t let them take advantage of that, don’t forget who you are.’

They held hands, and Bucky’s hands were as warm as his words.

When the horizon started to glow they stopped and face each other.

Bucky kissed Steve so softly Steve wanted to cry. They stood on the corner for a few moments.

It was Bucky who said – ‘Goodbye, Steve Rogers,’ with a finality that hurt Steve’s chest.

‘Goodbye, Bucky Barnes,’ Steve replied, ‘take care.’

‘You too, Stevie.’ And with a brush of his hand over Steve’s cheek, Bucky Barnes walked away, and out of Steve’s life. When they saw one other next Steve would be different, and Bucky too. In some ways, but not in others.

The next day he said goodbye to Natasha, and his mother. On the bus he pressed his face against the window and tried so hard not to cry.

\-----

Captain Steve Rogers was a big guy. Agent Romanov was small. While she wouldn’t admit it to anyone, she did really like being enfolded in a Steve Rogers hug. He was like a wall blocking out the world. And he knew her better than anyone.

And she knew him. Knew his hugs weren’t good because he was big and muscled, but because if he loved you he loved you fiercely and forever. And his hugs had been just as good when he was the same size at her, and twice as bony.

She knew Steve was sad, but she didn’t know what to do about it – after all, she was too. So she stayed with SHIELD, stayed with him, and hoped one day they’d work it out. She’d lost him for a while, and that had not gone well. She wasn’t going to let that happen again.

\-----

In a forest somewhere the Winter Soldier was alone. It had been a long mission. The extraction had failed and he was making his way to the rendezvous point. It was humid and the forest had a tangy smell. The air was damp and heavy and the moon was lighting his path.

He stopped for a moment, breathing in.

When he touched his cheek it was wet. He looked at his fingers and it wasn’t blood but water. He put his fingers on his tongue and the water tasted like salt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love people reading my little stories, and I love hearing from you. If moved to do so, please leave a comment - all comments welcome - criticism both constructive and deconstructive. I also don't use a beta so happy to hear about typos. My tenses went a little wild when writing this one, so hopefully I smoothed that out, but let me know.
> 
> You can also find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/powerfulowl2) and [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/stuckyflangst) if you prefer to communicate via those channels.


	2. What arms have lain under my head till morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The engine died off and for a moment there was just Etta James singing – ‘You promised to write me, each and every day, and I haven’t heard from you since you went away – ’
> 
> ‘You wrote to me Steve, that was really nice,’ Bucky said, eyes cast down, hands in his lap.
> 
> Steve reached out and touched his hand, softly. ‘I’d never forget about you, Bucky Barnes.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dear readers. Sorry this update has taken so long. I sought of leaped into this story, and then had to spend some time working out where I was going. Be assured, I now have a plan and a (tentative) chapter count. I plan to post every fortnight on either Saturday or Sunday, but I might have a bit of a run over Christmas when I have a bit of time off work.
> 
> Also FYI I am working on my exact timeline but this story starts in 2003. Just so you know why there's a reference to a CD wallet in this chapter and why Steve and Bucky are emailing. Any historical inaccuracies are due to this being an alternate universe. More world building will draw out those differences.
> 
> Just a note that Steve puts himself and in particular his body down a lot in this chapter, and there is a little but of homophobic language referred to. Please let me know if there is anything I should tag or reference.

Captain Rogers was always extra nice to the first year Academy students. He taught first year Tactics & Strategy and – when he wasn’t called away on a mission – he would keep his office hours and tolerate the wide-eyed just-adults coming and stuttering out questions.

He was bigger in person, everyone agreed. You got so used to seeing muscle-bound men on screens that it was only once you were in his presence your understood _super_ strength. He didn’t look so much like the early propaganda pictures published after SHIELD has emerged from the shadows to fight the Battle of New York. Back then he was blond and clean shaven and All American. A poster boy for a new kind of war, against a new kind of enemy.

Now, his hair was a darker blonde and his beard was tinged with red. He largely avoided interviews or pictures. SHIELD’s mission statement wasn’t as clear anymore. It seemed more closely affiliated with the World Security Council, more like a global cop.

The Captain was particularly attentive to the scholarship kids, and even more so to those that made it in via the Intelligence Program – smart enough that SHIELD still wanted them even if they didn’t pass the physical tests. And they would stand in front of the photo of scrawny Steve Rogers in the SHIELD Hall of Fame, right next to a shot of Captain America, and dream they too might be turned into a hero.

But the Supersoldier Program was on hold now. Safety concerns, they said. But Captain Rogers looked fine. Whispers had it that he didn’t want anyone competing against him, he wanted to be the one and only.

It was hard to credit, though, if you went to talk to him in his office and listened to him explain things in his warm, calm voice, looking at you straight on with sad blue eyes.

\-----

For Steve, Physical Training was the fifth circle of Hell. In the Intelligence Stream it was the only physical course he had to do in first year, but there were no exceptions. Not even if you were small and had a crooked spine and asthma and had no idea why SHIELD accepted you in the first place. You just had to make it work.

One day you might have to travel 40 miles alone on foot. How would you do it? How far can you run and how far can you walk and how far can you crawl?

There were the drills – climbing things, crawling under things, jumping over things. It was like scenes from a movie montage but without the cuts and the inspiring music, or – in Steve’s case – any real signs of improvement.

Maybe Steve was getting a bit faster, a bit stronger, but so was everyone else. He always came in last.

The first year program director was a Colonel Phillips, and he had no time for Steve.

‘This Stream is a new initiative agreed last year by the Board,’ Phillips had said during a “special briefing” on the first day. ‘I just wanted you all to know that I think it’s a stupid idea. I don’t want to be out there in the field with agents can’t hold their own, no matter how good your _intelligence_ is.’

He’d glared at Steve specifically. The others in the intelligence stream might not have met the full physical criteria. But Matt, for example, while blind, was incredibly strong and fast and totally fearless of heights. Unlike Steve, who suffered from vertigo and could barely climb a fence as tall as himself. Melati Kusuma had two prosthetic legs, but apparently part of her deal with SHIELD was getting _even more awesome_ prostheses and because she was so smart she was working with Dr Banner on some high-tech suit.

Steve had wanted this so badly – to help, to feel useful, to make a difference, to live a more important, more significant life. Maybe a little foolishly dreamed of how he could have lived earlier, could have fought the Nazis in World War II. And SHIELD was fully funded so there were no debts for him, no need for his mum to worry about how he was housed and clothed and fed while he was studying.

Now he was here he just felt like a fool. Faced with the reality of the training he had to admit that he had hoped for some kind of miracle – something to transform his skinny, broken body into something whole, something strong.

Most nights he would lie in his bed in the darkness, aching, listening to his asshole roommate snoring, and think of a warm summer night in the park, soft flesh, sweet moans. His chest would fill with tears he couldn’t cry. He knew it was ridiculous; it was just one night. To Bucky, it wouldn’t have been particularly significant. Bucky was just a soul with a lot of tenderness to give. But for Steve it was like for a moment he had come into himself, into his body, felt whole and powerful.

Steve sent him emails sometimes.

_Hi Bucky_

_It’s really strange here at the Academy. In some ways (for me mostly the amount of exercise I have to do) it’s so different from high school. But in others it’s the same. Still jocks who call me names on the sly. I got a reprimand the other day because my awful roommate called me a faggot. So I punched him and Colonel Phillips caught me. I didn’t say why I’d hit him so I got the reprimand. He got a bruise on his jaw so I guess it worked out. He just ignores me now, which is better._

_I wish I’d got to know you better at school. I guess I was worried you were too cool for me – which you are. But it seems like maybe that wouldn’t have bothered you so much._

_Steve_

Sometimes when he spoke to his mum on the phone she would say something like, ‘ _Oh, I saw James Barnes the other day at the store. He asked after you_ ,’ and Steve would imagine Bucky, maybe with his hair loose, or in a ponytail, a smile on his face. ‘ _He’s such a nice young man. You know he helps his father out in the garage. Not easy for them, with all those children. I often see James with the girls at the park, too._ ’

Steve’s chest would clench with shame at how ungrateful he was, to have all this – a scholarship, an education – while Bucky – always so sharp, so smart, so quick with words and numbers and smiles – had to work in his father’s garage, stay at home.

Steve wrapped up his unhappiness – told his mum it was hard but good. Talked about Dr Erskine, the Science & Technology lecturer and was so kind to him. Or his Strategy & Tactics tutor, Peggy Carter, with her razor-sharp mind and beautiful, flashing eyes.

Peggy at least seemed to see him, even if he felt like maybe she was a little sorry for him. How could she not, here amongst all these demi-gods.

Before, he had always had Natasha. Who loved him fiercely and loyally and more than he could love himself. But she was silent, not responding to his emails. He had no address. Occasionally a postcard would arrive, with nothing written on it. A picture of a birch forest, the Winter Palace, a bear. She was alive, he knew, but not okay. Her parents never replied to his emails either. His mother never seemed to run into them.

He was surrounded by healthy, vibrant bodies. They didn’t even care about him enough to mock him. He felt so far away from that brave boy who had followed Bucky Barnes out into the park and kissed him against a tree. For a while he thought maybe it was a dream, until Bucky replied to him.

_Hey Steve_

_I’m so happy you got in touch! I wondered if maybe you’d forgotten about old Centerville now you’re in that fancy academy. Your mum always tells me how well you’re doing when I see her._

_I wondered the other day, are you still drawing? You should mail me a drawing of the Academy, or your roommate. I used to think your drawings of people in school were really funny, or beautiful, depending on who it was._

_Working at the garage is okay, though I get bored sometimes. I’ve been reading a lot, now I don’t have to study. I read a book called Giovanni’s Room. It was really beautiful, but really sad. I think you’d like it, and it’s not very long. I’m sure you have a lot of work to do._

_Keep writing – it’s kinda boring here now. If you wanted to be friends with me you just should have asked. I always really liked you Steve._

_At least we made out once, ;-)_

_bucky_

But when he went home for Christmas the Barnes Garage was shuttered and closed, and Sarah said they’d all gone to Indiana.

‘Tell James I said hi, if you see him,’ Steve said casually. Sarah narrowed her eyes at him a little.

Christmas was just him and Mum, and he missed Natasha so much. She would always come over to see them in the afternoon, and then have dinner with them and watch a movie. Steve thought he could cope with it all if he just had her still, to tell him he was an idiot and ruffle his hair, which _no one_ else was allowed to do, and smirk at him from his bed while he talked about Bucky. Which he had been doing for so many years it was embarrassing.

A few weeks after he was back at the Academy a card arrived with a Russian folk-art design – a woman and a man being pulled along in a sleigh by horses. But the man was holding onto the woman – it looked like he was dragging her off against her will. He was in a red suit, sort of like Santa, and she was wearing black. Steve’s heart ached and he wept into his pillow.

Hodge sneered at Steve’s red eyes when he got back from his Friday night out at the bar.

In the cafeteria at lunch time, still aching from morning drills, Steve ate alone and listened to conversations and laughter echoing around him. All these people, enjoying the best days of their life.

\-----

It was in February, in the frozen dead of the east coast winter, that things changed for Steve.

There was another ridiculous running exercise, this time with packs on, through the snow. After about 10 miles Steve stumbled up to the group gathered around a frozen flagpole.

Phillips glared at Steve as he shouted out: ‘The objective is to get the flag down. You each get one try. In the order you arrived. Winner can ride with Agent Carter back to the Academy.’ Phillips pointed a thumb towards where Peggy sat behind the wheel of a snow mobile. She gave a cheery wave with a gloved hand from inside her snug, lined jacket.

Steve stood off to the side, moving from foot to foot. He was exhausted, but he knew he couldn’t afford to get cold. His outfit was adequate for when he was running (shuffling) through the snow, but the wind had a bite to it. He just hoped someone would get the flag down quickly. Sadly, Matt wasn’t here – he was with Erskine testing some new suit.

One by one the students tried to climb the pole. Steve got some small satisfaction from seeing Hodge – who’d made it there first – rip the skin on his palms when he touched the frozen metal. But then the pole got slippery as the ice melted, gloves got wet.

Steve could feel himself shivering and almost thought about just asking Phillips if he could keep running. It wasn’t like he could climb the pole.

Though – he thought for a moment. The instruction was actually to get the flag, not to climb the pole. He studied when the pole attached into the ground. All the tramping around the bottom had revealed the base.

‘Rogers!’ shouted Phillips, ‘you’re up!’

Hodge and a few others snorted.

‘Why even bother?’ Steve heard someone mutter.

He felt anger bubble inside him. It was good, warming; an old friend.

He raised an eyebrow and sauntered over to the pole, meeting Phillip’s scowl with a quirk of his lips.

He bent down and pulled out the pin holding up the flagpole and gave it a gentle push. It tilted and fell into the snow with a satisfying thump. He walked up to the flag and detached it, holding the sodden, icy-cold fabric away from his body. He walked up to Phillips and handed it to him.

‘Here you go sir.’

Then, without looking at anyone, he walked over to the snowmobile and sat in the drivers’ side beside Peggy.

‘Come on, back to it!’ Phillips roared, holding up the flag. Then he got into the back of the vehicle, slamming the door.

‘Good work, Rogers,’ Phillips said. ‘They’re all fucking idiots.’

Peggy laughed and Steve found his mouth spreading in a smile.

After that, Steve would often find Phillips and Dr Erskine looking at him thoughtfully when he was in class or struggling his way through some ridiculous obstacle course.

There were ranking boards at SHIELD. Everything was a competition. Anything physical, Steve was at the bottom. Tactics & Strategy was taught by Colonel Rhodes, and with Peggy as his tutor, Steve was top of that one list. Science & Tech was okay, and Dr Erskine was obviously fond of him, but Steve’s mind would wander and he’d start sketching designs of armor rather than paying attention to the equations that described the interactions of the electronic circuits. In Politics & Civics his opinions were a little too strong for the liking of Professor Pierce – a distinguished guest from the World Security Council, as he often reminded them.

‘Sometimes, a leader must think of the good of the many, even that means and injustice for the few,’ Professor Pierce said solemnly.

Steve’s hand shot up. ‘But Professor, who decides on what’s good for the many?’

Pierce narrowed his eyes at Steve.

‘In this lecture I will explain, Mr Rogers, how we can determine what is best for people through objective measures of happiness – security, safety, health, community.’

Steve’s hand shot up again but Pierce ignored him.

Pierce gave him a begrudging B+ on his essay on the value of freedom, and a C- on his essay on the value of community as compared to the state.

On March 10 he sent Bucky a happy birthday message but didn’t hear anything back.

‘George Barnes has cancer,’ his Mum told him a few weeks later. ‘He’s in the hospital now, and she’s fading fast. Apparently their health insurance wasn’t great. The garage is up for sale.’

Steve’s heart clutched in his chest. Poor Bucky. Steve’s little fantasies of going home over summer, seeing Bucky, kissing him among the scent of pine and chlorine, all seemed so childish now. The tremble in his hands when he thought about Bucky kneeling before him, the pink of his lips. Desire and sadness sort of tangled together as he lay in bed, staring into the dark.

In April, Steve was sitting alone in a computer lab working on an analysis of the Tet offensive, and getting angrier and angrier, when suddenly the lights went down and the lockdown alarm started.

Steve’s body responded – taught by the weekly emergency drills. He dropped under the desk and switched off the computer. After about two minutes the alarm stopped, but the all-clear didn’t sound.

 _If you don’t hear the all-clear assume the building is compromised. Remain in position_.

He could hear his heart in his ears. After so many years dealing with its uneven rhythm, he was attuned to it. The beat was irregular, but calmer than he had thought it might be. Maybe all that cardio really was working.

He stayed still. He adjusted his hearing aid now the alarm had stopped, trying to pick up sounds from distant floors. Shouts? The thump of boots?

How many people had been in here with him? He reviewed his mental picture of the room. He thought there was a later year student over near the window – a guy called Clint Barton that Steve had some hearing-impaired solidarity with, even if Clint was the best marksman at the school and Steve couldn’t see to shoot straight. Hodge was here as well, sitting next to Sharon Carter, Peggy’s cousin, and trying to flirt with her. He was being a jerk, but Sharon seemed capable of handling him herself. A couple of others scattered around Steve didn’t know.

Everyone was maintaining protocol.

Boots came thumping down the hallway and the sounds of voices.

‘We have to clear all the rooms,’ one shouted.

‘Prisoners?’

‘No, it’s not worth the risk. It’ll just be students in here. Just chuck in a grenade.’

 _Fuck_.

Steve hear a person at the door and the clatter of something across the floor.

He sprang out from under the desk shouting, ‘ _Watch out, grenade!_ ’

Almost simultaneously Clint Barton leapt up and lobbed an object across the room, hitting the black clothed figure in the doorway in the centre of the forehead, sending them stumbling back into their colleague behind them.

Hodge burst out from under his desk and sprinted for the far side of the room while Steve flung himself on the grenade yelling, ‘ _Take cover!_ ’

The whole room stayed suspended in coiled silence for a moment, an eternity. Steve’s life didn’t flash before his eyes, but he felt a well of joyousness that he had seized that moment with Bucky, felt the sweaty trembling of his skin under his hands. It was a small thing, but it was enough. _At least we got to make out_.

Then –

Nothing.

Until the black clad figure started laughing and swearing.

‘Fucking hell Barton, a fucking _stapler_.’

Steve looked up, body still curled over the grenade.

‘And you, Rogers,’ the figure pulled their mask off, revealing the brown hair and amused face of Agent Hill, one of the field agents that turned up occasionally for training. ‘You know that protocol is to remain _hidden at all times_?’

Steve took a couple of moments, looking at Hill, feeling the inert lump of the grenade poking into his stomach.

‘Oh, it was a test,’ he said. He started to climb to his feet, a little shaky, adrenaline still pumping through his system. ‘I just calculated that the detonation radius would likely mean that Hodge and Carter and those two over there,’ he pointed to where a couple of heads were poking over the desks, ‘would all be taken out, even under cover. If I could absorb some of the blast, they would probably be okay.’ He shrugged.

Hill just laughed again and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘I like you Rogers. Erskine says you don’t pay enough attention in Science & Tech, but obviously you’ve got enough physics to work that out on the spot.’

‘But you,’ she points to Clint, ‘what the fuck was the stapler going to do?’

Clint shrugged. ‘I just wanted to go down fighting.’

Hill snorted.

There was an assembly afterwards.

‘Most of you followed protocol perfectly,’ Phillips said, glaring at them all as if this was a condemnation rather than a compliment. ‘Some of you took some very _unconventional_ approaches.’ Steve and Clint shifted in their chairs, and glancing around, Steve could see a few others grinning or winking or looking sheepish.

‘And a few of you demonstrated an instinct for _self-preservation_.’ Now that was a real glare. Hodge didn’t even have the decency to look chastised.

A week later Erskine invited him into his office. Peggy was there, smiling at Steve. Phillips was lounging with what Steve had come to realise was just an almost permanent scowl, and perhaps not quite as personal as he had assumed.

‘Steve,’ Erskine said. ‘While you might not have realised it, you were also brought into the Intelligence Stream with the goal of testing new technology.’

Steve shifted in his seat a little. What could they give _him_? Stilts? An iron lung?

‘But the program we would like to invite you to participate in will make more _fundamental changes_ to you than a new suit or prostheses. Therefore, it was important to us that we knew what sort of _stuff you were made of_ , as my dear colleague the Colonel would say.’ Erskine smiled and pushed his glasses up his nose.

Phillips rolled his eyes at that, arms across his chest..

‘A previous trial revealed that where the fundamentals of a person are not so good, the process may reveal that.’ Erskine’s brow furrowed, and his eyes focused on a point beyond Steve’s head.

Steve frowned, not really following.

‘Basically, Steven, we are inviting you to volunteer for a _supersoldier_ program.’ Erskine leaned forward and clasped his hands on the desk. ‘We would administer a serum of my own design, in combination with a treatment with a special frequency radiation over a period of a year. It would make you stronger, make you heal faster, likely improve your energy and endurance.’

Steve hears his heart fluttering.

‘It would potentially cure a number of your current ailments – your heart condition, your scoliosis, your hearing, your asthma.’

‘You say _likely_ and _potentially_?’ Steve says.

Erskine inclines his head. ‘Like all experimental procedures, there is some risk it won’t work. There is also a risk it may harm you, but we believe that risk is very low. We have chosen you very carefully Steven, right from your entry essay to the recent exercise where you chose to throw yourself on a grenade because you believed it would save your fellow students.’

Steve could see himself in his room at home, scrunched over a keyboard typing about how he wanted to make a difference, how he didn’t like bullies, how he believed in making the space for people to make the right choices, but standing up when you saw someone doing something wrong. Wanting to punch Nazis. Okay – maybe that hadn’t made it into the final draft.

‘You could really make a difference through this program, Steve,’ Peggy leaned in. ‘You have such a great mind, and with a stronger, faster body, imagine what you could do.’

A part of Steve whispered – _can’t I make a difference like this, in this body, this bony, spiky body that’s carried me this far, that’s shaped who I am, that somebody once kissed, once touched with gentle fingers_. He felt a tug of sadness that Peggy, who was so beautiful and smart and fierce thought he needed to be more, be different, to be of service.

But he said, ‘Yes, yes of course I’ll do it,’ because apparently that was what was needed of him.

\-----

He went home for a week at the start of June. Sarah was sad he wouldn’t be there over summer, turned a little misty-eyed.

‘You’re all grown up though, now, doing such important things.’

He explained that SHIELD had a program which would make him healthier, stronger, all the things she had wanted those years when she was worried he wouldn’t make it, gasping for breath in summer thunderstorms, hospitalised with a fever.

‘You know I don’t want you to be any different,’ she murmured into his hair. ‘You’re just perfect – my perfect Steven. Only do this if you want to.’

He hugged her tight and said, _yes it’s what I want_ , even though he wasn’t certain that it was. She was his mother. Of course she thought he was perfect.

They spent a lot of time together, going to old haunts – the cinema on High Street where Steve had watched every Disney movie, the park where he’d struggled to play with the other kids, where a little Bucky Barnes had once intervened in a scuffle and pulled Steve to his feet afterwards, so easily and so unknowingly stealing Steve’s heart.

He wasn’t here today.

‘Someone has bought the garage business,’ Sarah nodded as she drove passed. Not Barnes’ Garage anymore, but MotorWorks. ‘I think James still works there, though I haven’t seen much of him recently.’

Steve hummed in reply, staring as if he might catch a glimpse of Bucky, who he imagined would be in jeans and a white t-shirt, greasy and rumpled.

‘George is very ill, though,’ she said. ‘Winnie’s been working at the Walmart, but they don’t pay well. I don’t know how they’re managing with the three girls.’

Steve went and knocked on Natasha’ parents’ door. Her mother, Vera, answered, looking slender and polished and immaculate as ever.

She invited Steve in and made them tea, served in delicate china cups that Steve was always afraid of breaking.

‘Natasha is doing very well at the Red Room,’ she said, sipping her tea. ‘She is top of all her classes. I’m so sorry she doesn’t have time to write.’

Steve gave a forced smile. ‘That’s fine, I understand. I just wanted to check she was okay.’ He took a sip of the bitter, smoky tea.

‘Do you have any pictures?’ he asked.

Vera hesitated for a moment then put her tea down and left the room.

She came back with a printed photo of Natasha wearing a long back formal dress, hair piled onto her head, curls pinned. She was wearing red lipstick and smoky eyes.

‘This is from a ball they held. She is very beautiful, yes?’ Vera handed the photo to Steve.

His eyes prickled as he searched for his beautiful Natasha, with her lurid t-shirts and short shorts, ripped jeans and knitted sweaters. Sarah Rogers had knitted her a black and pink beanie with a giant pom-pom years ago and she would wear it every winter. Has she taken it with her?

He touched her face in the photo – tight and tired. In his heart he swore that one day he would go looking for her and bring her back home.

He wandered back through the warm evening, the light lingering late in summer time, the hum of the suburbs around him. He’d always hated it so much – the manicured lawns and bright, rigid rows of houses. But now he could feel nostalgia creeping in, for parties in backyards that he could hear but wasn’t invited to, sneaking into the movies with Natasha without paying, eating icecreams at Lola’s Diner.

He found his feet directing him that way. Lola’s was open until late, serving pancakes and bacon and icecreams and homemade pies. It hadn’t been redecorated since the 50s, and finally fashion was coming round to it again.

Steve slid into a vinyl booth seat, running his hands across the red formica table.

A young woman came to take his order and poured him out a filter coffee. Steve swung his feet, staring out into the carpark.

‘Well if it isn’t Steve Rogers.’

Surely the world just stopped?

Steve turned with a thrill and looked up into Bucky Barnes’ steel blue eyes.

‘Bucky!’ he exclaimed, and without thinking scrambled up to wrap him in a hug.

Bucky laughed, pulling him close and pressing his nose to Steve’s hair.

‘Look at you,’ Bucky pulled back, squeezing on Steve’s arms. ‘You’ve got muscles Stevie! What’ve you been up to in Virginia?’

Steve blushed and stammered a little. He was so used to being around incredibly fit, incredibly strong people, he forgot that he had in fact spent hundreds of hours working out over the past year. He was still small, but wirier, more muscular than he had been.

Then he let his eyes roam and drink in the sight of Bucky Barnes.

He was wearing skinny black jeans with rips worn at the knees, and a black cut-off t-shirt with _Slut_ emblazoned on the front in purple glitter.

He too looked more solid around the shoulders, the arms. His hair was pulled up into a ponytail revealing an undercut.

He looked amazing. Steve’s dreams couldn’t compare. That beautiful cleft chin, those cheekbones, those eyes shining at him.

Steve’s traitorous heart was fluttering and he knew his cheeks were flushed. The last time they had seen one another was –

Bucky’s cheeks pinkened a little too, and he bit at his bottom lip. How could _Bucky_ be nervous. Bucky who was perfect, was everything.

‘You having an icecream?’ Bucky asked.

‘Yeah,’ Steve laughed nervously, pushing a hand through his hair and then immediately regretting it, knowing that now it would be spiking up every which way.

At that moment, the waitress arrived back. Bucky smiled and greeted her as _Alice_ and she giggled a little, putting Steve’s enormous banana sundae down on the table.

‘Mind if I join you?” Bucky asked, easy as that.

‘I’d love it!’ Steve said, not caring to play it cool. He was leaving in two days.

Bucky ordered something called an Elvis and they slipped into the booth, Steve warily examining his sundae.

‘I guess you gotta eat a lot to maintain that muscle, Stevie,’ Bucky dropped a wink and a grin.

Steve kicked him under the table. ‘Don’t make fun,’ he grumbled.

‘I’m not!’ Bucky protested. ‘I mean it Steve, you’ve always been really good looking, but you just look so strong and healthy now.’ Bucky had managed to trap Steve’s foot following the kicking incident.

Steve took and enormous mouthful of banana and icecream and cream to prevent himself from having to say anything.

Bucky waited patiently as Steve worked his way through his icrecream headache.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t write much,’ Bucky lowered his head and looked at the table, hands in his lap.

‘It’s okay, Bucky,’ Steve reached across the table. ‘I know it’s been a really tough year for you. There’s no pressure from me.’

Bucky looked up shyly and took Steve’s hand. His hands were a little rougher, the tips stained with grease, nails short.

Steve’s heart fluttered, not sure who this person was that had just reached out and taken Bucky’s hand without thinking.

Bucky’s mountain arrived composed of icecream and peanut butter and choc chips, but he held onto Steve and they both ate their way through their icecream one-handed.

Steve told Bucky about his classes, and his classmates, about Hodge.

‘I can’t believe you have to _share a room with him_ ,’ Bucky snorted.

Then Steve got to the story about the grenade. He was going for the laughs with Clint throwing the stapler, but Bucky was staring at him, horrified.

‘ _You threw yourself on the grenade?_ ’ Bucky clutched Steve’s hand even tighter.

Steve shrugged. ‘It wasn’t _real_.’

‘But you didn’t know that!’ Bucky hissed, scowling at him. ‘You’re such a dumbass.’

Steve felt pleasantly warmed by Bucky’s indignation. At the Academy it had been a point of pride – that he would have sacrificed himself. Steve thought it was because maybe nobody saw him – Steve Rogers. Nobody would care if he died, not really.

‘You better take care of yourself Stevie,’ Bucky scolded. ‘It doesn’t sound like you’ve got anyone watching your six.’

Steve laughed, and blushed a little. ‘Quite the military jargon there, Buck.’

Bucky grinned a little awkwardly and said he’d been watching a lot of movies. Steve asked about Bucky’s sisters, and he talked about Becca, who’s just finished Grade 9, Evie, who’s starting Grade 7 and little Gracie, who’s only 7. 

They paid for the icecreams and waved goodbye to Alice.

Out in the carpark Bucky put his hands into his pockets.

‘Um, can I give you a ride somewhere?’

 _God, his eyelashes are so beautiful when he looks down like that._ The scent of summer was in the air – tarmac and pine. _Bucky’s downcast eyes, on his knees, Steve’s cock in his mouth –_

‘Um, yeah, that would be great.’

Bucky led them over to an old, slightly beat up Honda Civic.

‘It’s not that fancy,’ he shrugged. ‘One of the most popular models in the US though.’

Steve just laughed. ‘I got to the Academy and they discovered I couldn’t drive, so I’ve been learning in the troop trucks.’

They got in and sat for a moment.

‘Where would you like to go?’ Bucky squeezed on the steering wheel. Was he nervous? Surely he couldn’t be nervous.

‘I don’t really need to be home yet,’ Steve said, looking directly at Bucky.

Bucky Barnes made him _brave_ made him _want things_.

Bucky looked back at him, lips parted, pupils dilated in the darkness of the car.

‘We could go up to the Lookout?’ Steve’s heart was beating in his throat. He felt like a teenager again. He guessed he was still only 18.

Bucky broke into a grin and winked at Steve.

‘That sounds great,’ he murmured huskily and Steve made a little noise in his throat.

The drive up the hill, to the lookout above town (notorious make-out site, which Steve associated with uninspiring, sloppy kisses and pawing hands with people he wasn’t really that into) was both tense and comfortable. The air hummed with a sense of anticipation, but they talked easily. Bucky was so easy for Steve it astounded him. Like he could have been doing this for years, forever. Old blues, slow and languid and sad, played on the stereo.

They pulled over in a private space under a tree, not looking out onto the town, but into the forest. The moon was bright, and they could see quite clearly in the car – though everything was more shadowy, more silver, more like a dream.

The engine died off and for a moment there was just Etta James singing – ‘ _You promised to write me, each and every day, and I haven’t heard from you since you went away – ’_

‘You wrote to me Steve, that was really nice,’ Bucky said, eyes cast down, hands in his lap.

Steve reached out and touched his hand, softly. ‘I’d never forget about you, Bucky Barnes.’

Bucky looked up at him through those eyelashes and leaned towards him. So easy. It was so easy to lean forward and press his lips against Bucky’s, so soft and smooth and tender. To catch his lower lip gently, to run his tongue along the seam of Bucky’s mouth and slide their tongues together.

Bucky made a breathy noise and Steve groaned deep and throaty, squeezing on Bucky’s hand, lacing their fingers together.

Steve’s body was warm. The scent of the cypress came in through the slightly opened windows.

Bucky reached out to touch Steve, to tug him closer, and gave a frustrated little whine.

Steve pulled back a little and looked down at the centre console, glaring at it.

Bucky laughed and Steve looked up to catch the _delight_ on Bucky’s face, which was a little sadder now, than it had been.

‘I don’t think we can win against the console, Steve. How about we change location,’ Bucky gestured to the back seat. Steve pressed a quick, hard kiss to his lips then scrambled into the back.

Bucky laughed again, then got out the front door, and back in through the side.

He pulled the door shut then Steve was scrambling onto his lap, pushing back on his shoulders and pressing a wet, messy kiss to Bucky’s parted lips. Steve watched as Bucky’s eyes widened then fluttered shut and his whole body trembled beneath Steve.

Steve pushed down harder on Bucky’s chest and ground his hips down, feeling Bucky’s hips jerk a little, the outline of his cock in those tight black jeans.

Steve’s hands slipped under Bucky’s shirt, seeking out the smooth, soft skin that his skin remembered on lonely nights (every night). Bucky sighed into Steve’s mouth as their tongues darted, Steve’s teeth biting down on Bucky’s tongue and drawing out a moan, a squirm.

Bucky’s hands wrapped around Steve’s ribs, ran along his spine, sending hot and cold shivers through his bones, through his cock.

He pulled away, tugging at Bucky’s shirt, pulling it over his head, feeling his whole body flush at the sight of Bucky’s swelling chest rising and falling with quick breaths, the dark curl of his sprinkling of chest hair, the trail down his belly into his pants.

And oh, his hands still above his head, wrists crossed, his face soft and shining in the moonlight.

Steve quickly pulled his own t-shirt off and reverently ran his hands across Bucky’s torso, listening for the sound of his breath, his wet, throaty groans as Steve lightly pinched his nipples, rising to a pained cry as Steve squeezed harder, hips bucking up, hand fluttering.

‘Steve,’ Bucky whispered, looking at him with damp, pleading eyes.

‘It’s okay, Buck,’ Steve soothed, rubbing his thumb over Bucky’s bottom lip and pressing it into his mouth, over his teeth, holding firmly to Bucky’s bottom jaw. ‘I’ll take care of you.’

Bucky gave a little sob as Steve moved his hand and gently untangled the hair tie from Bucky’s hair. He took Bucky’s crossed hands and stretched the elastic over them, securing it around Bucky’s wrists.

‘There you go, baby,’ he whispered, and pressed kisses to Bucky’s sweaty palms, along the inside of his arms, across his shoulders to his neck, where he rested, feeling Bucky’s pulse hammering, strong and regular against Steve’s tongue.

Then his bit down and Bucky cried out – hands straining against the elastic hips rising as Steve pressed his ass down as hard as he could, hands holding Bucky’s shoulders, containing him, holding him.

Steve watched the red rise to Bucky’s throat and sucked hard on the line of his jaw, on his collarbone, worried each nipple until Bucky sobbed and moaned, incoherent and squirming.

And Steve could feel his own strength, feel each atom of his being hot and yearning for Bucky Barnes, lighting up at each cry Steve scraped from his burning skin.

‘ _Steve_ ,’ Bucky pleaded, senseless and wide eyed.

‘Okay, this is going to be a little undignified,’ Steve panted, unbuttoning Bucky’s jeans and working them down Bucky’s muscled, curving thighs until they gathered around Bucky’s calves. From this position Steve could just bend his head a little and mouth across the cloth of Bucky’s red boxer briefs, feeling the line of his hard cock, the soft of the skin of his belly, the coarse curl of his pubic hair.

There was nothing else in the whole world – just this. Steve wriggled himself down onto the floor, so grateful for his tiny frame, knees on either side of Bucky’s feet. He released Bucky’s cock, giving his own moan as he saw the perfect, thick curving shape, the uncut tip, pre-come catching in the moonlight.

Steve licked it off, licking the slit, tasting Bucky on his tongue. He own cock pulsed and he pressed his palm there for a moment before sucking Bucky down, pumping with his hand. His tongue lapped eagerly as he bobbed his head, holding Bucky’s hips down.

‘Steve steve steve steve steve,’ Bucky’s speech was garbled, punctuated by gasps and sobs, his voice thick and teary. Steve gently ran his teeth along Bucky’s shaft and he _keened_ high and desperate.

Steve pulled off, laving Bucky with his tongue a few times while he fumbled with his own pants, blessedly not as tight as Bucky’s. He managed to clamber back onto Bucky’s lap and pull each leg of his jeans off. He looked down at his own briefs, despairing slightly. Then he took a deep breath, grabbed on either side of the seam on the right outer leg, and ripped, then again on the left, then pulled them off in triumph, throwing them to the side.

‘Steve,’ Buck breathed shakily, mouth pink and wet, face flushed, hands still bound with the thin elastic, ‘that was so hot.’

They both laughed, breathless and quivering.

Steve plunged in for another bruising kiss, pressing their naked torsos together, their erect cocks.

And that was it – Steve was gone.

He wrapped his hand around their shafts, Bucky’s cock wet with Steve’s saliva, brushing pre-come across the tips with his thumb, along the skin where they pressed together.

Then he squeezed and urgently started fucking into his fist. At first they both thrust clumsily and out of time, but quickly found a rhythm, both looking down in wonder at their rippling bellies, their cocks glistening silvery and wet. Steve’s grip was hard and unrelenting. He clenched his teeth and his own breath came in sobs to match Bucky’s. His skin was alive, the electric sensation building everywhere, centred on his throbbing cock which pressed against the silky skin of Bucky’s dick.

And Bucky was releasing, coming into Steve’s fist and Steve kept hold of him, kept fucking as Bucky cried and writhed, eyes wide and filled with tears then Steve was coming too, all over them, and they were both smeared with each other’s fluids – semen and sweat and maybe tears too, even in Steve’s eyes.

Steve’s breath was loud in his ears. The music had stopped at some point. He ran his slick hand over Bucky’s naked perfection, soothing him. He took Bucky’s hands and gently pulled off the elastic, rubbing the red line where it had cut into Bucky’s skin.

He pressed a soft, gentle, liquid kiss to Bucky’s lips then rested their foreheads together. They stayed like that for a long time, cooling, heartbeats slowing, breathing one another in.

Reluctantly, Steve pulled back and ran a finger over Bucky’s cheek.

‘We should probably have some water,’ Steve said.

Bucky licked his lips and nodded, face dreamlike and magical in the moonlight.

‘I think there’s some in the glove box.’

The separated, Steve rolling to the side and finding his jeans. Bucky found some tissues and they wiped themselves off, a little shy now. Until Steve looked distastefully at his jeans.

‘I guess I’m going commando,’ he screwed up his nose, not liking the idea of his sticky crotch pressed against the denim.

Bucky snorted and Steve started to laugh.

‘I can’t believe I ripped my underpants off!’ he chortled.

Bucky giggled and elbowed him. ‘I wasn’t lying, it was totally hot. That you wanted me so much you couldn’t wait.’

They grinned and everything was easy again.

Settled in the front, dressed and hydrated, Steve felt a little sad.

‘I’m leaving the day after next,’ he said quietly. Bucky gave a sigh.

‘I really did like that you wrote to me,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t write much. It’s just – my dad is really sick –’

‘I know, Bucky, it’s okay,’ Steve touched his knee lightly, ‘you don’t need to tell me.’

‘It’s just really hard. They’re not paying me much at the garage now, because I’m not fully qualified. Mum’s working a lot, but it’s hard with the girls.’ Bucky rubbed his eyes. Like crying was okay when they were fucking, but not now.

‘Bucky –’ Steve started.

‘No, I –’ Bucky huffed out a breath. ‘I enlisted, Steve. In the Army. Today.’

Steve stared open mouthed.

‘It was all I could think of. I know it’s not much money, but there was a sign on bonus. You have to do eight years, and active duty, and I don’t want to –’

Bucky’s breath was harsh now, the tears gathering again in his voice.

‘Oh Bucky,’ Steve said. Because there wasn’t anything he could say. Bucky didn’t want to be in the army. Didn’t want to kill people. He wasn’t even like Steve with his hero complex and stupid dreams. He was beautiful, he was summer.

‘Still write to me, okay?’ Bucky turned his silver eyes to Steve. ‘Even if I don’t write back.’

‘Of course,’ Steve said, ‘always.’

\-----

The Soldier stole car. His hair hung in his eyes. He huffs in annoyance. In the glove box he found an elastic. He put it around his wrist as he combed through his hair with his fingers, pulling it into a ponytail.

With his hands above his head and the elastic tight around his wrist he paused for a moment. A fleeting sense of warmth. Water gathered in the corner of his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, I love your comments of all kinds. Feel free to ask questions or criticize. I post as I write, so dialogue is welcomed (if not always taken on board).
> 
> I also love to hear from people over on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/stuckyflangst) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/powerfulowl2)


	3. The rain is full of ghosts tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Bucky?’ To the side. Voice as rich and deep as ever. Bucky turned through molasses to a figure moving towards him, face full of wonder.
> 
> ‘Stevie?’ Bucky whispered.
> 
> He was so big, so big and shining, t-shirt stretching across his chest. Reaching out his hands for Bucky, who was reaching back.
> 
> ‘You were smaller,’ Bucky murmured, and Steve smiled at him like the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always for your lovely comments. Tags have been updated - further details in the end notes. I have also updated the story description (now I'm sure what it's about).
> 
> This chapter is mostly Bucky POV. Not great times for Bucky. 
> 
> Note that Bucky joins the Army but this story is very much not pro-military.

_Hi Bucky_

_Summer here has been really hard. I can’t say much about what I’m doing but it was so much harder than I thought it would be._

_I’m in this program to help with my health problems. It’s part of the scholarship program. I guess they kind of wanted me because I’m small and weak and sick. Hopefully for my smarts as well, but I’m not so sure about that. Anyway it’s been hard. Painful sometimes – often. Please don’t tell my mum if you see her. I don’t want her to know._

_A nice thing is that it’s quieter here in the summer. I’m spending a lot of time with some of the SHIELD agents rather than the students. Some of them are really cool. There’s a woman called Maria who has decided she wants to give me special hand to hand combat training. The treatment kind of makes my muscles and bones ache and she takes my mind off it by kicking my ass. I am getting stronger, but she’s way better than me._

_I spend a lot of time in a room that looks like a hospital, which reminds me of being sick when I was a kid. I guess I’ve always been sick. I always missed so much school. Maybe I would have got to know you better if I’d been around more. You were cooler than me but we could have been friends, I think._

_I think about you a lot. Is that weird? I’m so glad I ran into you and we went for that drive together. And the night of the party._

_I hope you’re okay. We do weapons training and stuff. This older student Clint has been giving me lessons. My eyesight is improving a bit but I still can’t see super well. I can’t imagine you with a gun._

_You weren’t made for that._

_Sorry for being weird._

_Steve_

Bucky filled with a warm, painful joy every time he received one of Steve’s emails. He’d run his hands across his buzzcut and remember how Steve’s hands felt in his hair, on his skin. He’d remember how many years he’d watched Steve Rogers in the playground, in the classroom. Steve’s scowls, his cornflower eyes, his golden hair that darkened a little over the years.

Why hadn’t he tried harder? Bucky had watched Steve and Natasha’s heads bent together, their fierce devotion, and could offer only his everyday smile. Steve said he was cool, but he was just ordinary – that’s why people liked him. Perfectly ordinary.

He would notice Steve watching him sometimes, blue eyes hot and brow furrowed. Bucky didn’t know what to do with the weight of that regard warming him.

Until that night when the liquid warmth of summer made him brave enough. And oh, Bucky had thought he’d know touches, known what it was to be loved a little. But Steve had _seen_ him. Steve had _touched_ him. Now his body ached from missing that gaze, those touches, for all the time before and all the time after.

 _You weren’t made for that_. Oh if only that were true. Bucky ran his fingers over the callouses forming where the rifle rested in his hands.

_Steve_

_I don’t think you’re weird. Or you are, but so am I, so is the world. And you were perfect – still are, I’m sure._

_It turns out I’m a really good marksman. I always had good eyes. I’m patient. Good at sitting still. I was thinking of becoming an engineer or something because of the work in the garage. The recruiter said it was an option. But now they’re talking about sniper training. I think they have enough people to fix things._

_Am I allowed to tell you this? I think you probably know how it makes me feel._

_Dad is still really sick._

_B_

_Bucky_

_I think I know how you feel. You’re a better person than I am. Sometimes when we’re doing training – combat or weapons or whatever – I feel all this anger coming out of me, and it feels good to think about hurting someone. I can’t imagine you feeling like that._

_School’s back here. Because of this program I’m in I get my own room. So I don’t have to put up with assholes – in my room anyway ;-)_

_I play those old jazz numbers you seem to like. ‘I find you spinning round in my head.’ I really like Billie Holiday._

_This year is seeming better than last year. I guess because I’m feeling better I’m getting out more. I’m not always at the back of the pack so I meet more people. Also people seem to like Clint a lot, and he’s still hanging out with me._

_Do you think you’ll be home anytime soon? I might be home for Thanksgiving._

_S_

Bucky felt like he was shutting down. He’d been out for so long it was like losing part of himself again to _not tell_.

After the 14 weeks of OSUT everyone went out in Columbus. Bucky was very drunk. His skin tingled. He wanted to dance. He wanted to kiss everyone. He ended up making out with a woman on the dance floor, grinding their hips together.

Everything was loud. She tasted like Coca Cola and bourbon. Her nails dug into his back through his t-shirt and he moaned a little into her mouth.

He lost himself in the crowd.

The next morning there were hickies on his neck and his mouth tasted like ash.

Back home he saw the relief in his mother’s eyes when Bucky’s enlistment bonus came through. Books to buy for school, debts to service. Six years he’d signed on for. The bonus was bigger that way.

He drove past the garage and tried not to look at it.

George Barnes was such a big, solid man. Bucky had seen photos from when George was young and he was slender, willowy, like Bucky. But years at the garage, years working on the house, the yard, on neighbor’s projects, eating Winnie’s home cooked meals and burgers from the diner had thickened and strengthened him, filled out his belly with contentment and love.

The concerned crinkle between his eyes when Bucky had come to him, shaking and nervous, and said _Dad, I like boys as well as girls_ and how George had burst into tears and hugged him tight and said, laughing, _Oh God Bucky I thought you were going to tell me there was something wrong with you_.

Long afternoons on Sundays when the garage was closed with George showing Bucky how to tinker with engines. His pride at Bucky’s B and B+ report cards, and then when he took the whole family out for dinner when Bucky got an A+ in physics.

Now his grey face in the hospital bed.

He held out a thin hand to Bucky and pulled him close.

‘Thank you for taking care of them, Bucky. You know I wanted more for you, not –’

Bucky let his tears fall and rested his head on his father’s chest, so shrunken and hollowed out.

‘I’m just doing what you taught me, Dad.’

George stroked his hair gently. ‘I’m so proud of you Bucky, so proud.’

Bucky didn’t tell him about the rifle. About being scheduled for the Marksman training next year. He told him about fixing army jeeps and all the different types of army engineer he could be.

George’s breathing slipped into sleep and Bucky stayed resting there until his mother came.

_Steve_

_It’s so weird being back in Centerville. Everything’s the same, but I feel so different. Who was I even, then? Would you know me if you saw me?_

_They’re sending me to Louisiana first, then maybe more training in Georgia. I probably won’t be here at Thanksgiving._

_B_

_Bucky_

_You wouldn’t know me, I don’t think, anymore. Everyone looks at me so differently now. Before I was always angry because people underestimated me, assumed things because of how I looked._

_Now I’m angry because people look at me so differently, even though I’m the same. Like, there’s this tutor, Peggy (she’s an agent but I can’t tell you her name). She was always nice to me. I did really well in the course she tutors for. But she always looked at me with sympathy, pity maybe – like it must be so hard for me. Anyway, she was away over the summer and when she came back I looked – different. Like, I’m taller now, and bigger. She looked at me differently. But I don’t feel any different. I can’t wash away the memory of her pity._

_I feel so ungrateful. I’m so much better now. I’m stronger. I can be of more use._

_I didn’t think I’d miss that other body. But it was the one that you – well._

_S_

_Steve_

_I would know you anywhere, I’m sure._

_B_

Bucky imagines this Peggy. She’s probably really beautiful. And smart. Not just a grunt in a swamp in Louisiana. Steve had liked Bucky when he was soft and lithe. Now his body is harder, his cheekbones sharper. His hand never trembles on the trigger. What about when there’s a face in the scope? What is he made of?

Bucky gets the call when he’s at Fort Polk. He leans his head against the phone booth and squeezes his eyes shut. His mother sobs down the phone and he puts his hand over his mouth. If he ships out he can get another bonus. Becca will be wanting to go to college soon.

The have to sell the house to pay the hospital bills.

As they’re folding up George’s clothes, Winnie whispers to him – ‘I feel like he just let go, so we wouldn’t have to keep paying.’

The Army doesn’t give you much time to mourn.

_Bucky_

_I’m so sorry about your dad._

_S_

_Bucky_

_I’m sorry you weren’t there at Christmas. I looked out for you and called, but I guess your family went away. I left a little gift for you. I hope you like it._

_This semester has been strange. There’s so many more things I can do now. I’m doing way more of the physical training. Guys like Hodge who never talked to me are always wanting to hang out. I’m going to have to share a room again next year. I hope it’s not with him._

_I wonder most days what I’m doing here. Why I’m doing this. One of my professors is always talking about how we need to make people safe, protect them. But human beings aren’t made of glass. I argue with him a lot about freedom and safety. I don’t think he likes me much._

_S_

Winnie posts him the envelope Steve left under the door. Bucky opens it and finds a set of three crayon sketches. One is a fir tree in the park, evergreen against a winter sky. One is of Barnes Garage, as it looked before. The last one is of Bucky, head thrown back against a car seat, wrists together, hair falling around his shoulders. As he looked before. Must still look, in Steve’s mind. Eyes soft and heavy, links pink and parted.

Bucky pins up the picture of the garage and the tree, and stashes the one of himself away.

_Steve_

_Thank you for the pictures. I’m real glad you’re still drawing. You make me look so pretty. I don’t look like that anymore._

_B_

_Bucky_

_However you look, I’m sure you’re beautiful. It’s so cold here at the moment. I guess it’s warmer down south._

_I think I’m too big now. I don’t know what to do with myself. People touch me a lot now. It’s strange. It’s like they’re not touching me. I went out in town the other night with Clint and some other people and this girl was flirting with me. I kissed her and she kept touching my chest and talking about how big I was. I felt like I was watching from somewhere else._

_She gave me her number. No one has ever done that before._

_I think Peggy was out in the bar too and the next day in class she was kind of cold._

_I wish I was just small and sick and ugly again._

_S_

_Steve_

_You’ve never been ugly._

_B_

_Bucky_

_I’m sorry I complained so much in my last email. I was having an ungrateful day. I’m trying to practice being grateful. I guess I miss Natasha a lot. You know I haven’t heard from her at all? I worry about her, but there’s so little I can do. One day I’ll go looking for her._

_I’ve made a new friend, though. Maybe that’s helping me._

_So, the thing is I can run really fast now (crazy right?). I went out for a run around the perimeter the other morning. It’s kind of big, but I can usually run around it a few times now. I passed this guy running and said ‘On your right’ as I ran past. But then I lapped him again and said it again. By the fourth time he was kind of pissed – he kept trying to run to catch me but he couldn’t._

_But afterwards we got talking. His name is Sam, and he’s in a different stream to me – a flight program. He says I’m way too heavy to fly, and that’s just from the rocks in my head._

_Anyway, we’re going to share a room next year, which is good. He’s a really nice guy. I hope you’ve met some people you like. I feel like it’s always been easy for you to meet people. I’ve been here almost two years and I’m averaging one friend a year._

_I really hope we see each other again soon._

_S_

Bucky was shipping out. His hands shook a lot, but never when he was holding a gun.

He was out with his _unit_. They’d been training in Virginia. The people he was going to be with for however long, somewhere in the mountains, or the desert, or wherever they were sending them.

But here they were in Richmond, hitting the town. These guys seemed alright. Morita. Jones. Dernier. Dugan. They were all in a weird place. Identified as having Special Forces potential, offered training, but they all needed bonus money so they’d chosen to be deployed as infantry. Promises had been made to them about when (if) they get back. But none of them had any illusions about the heroism of this game and that had drawn them together, led them a little off the beaten track on this final night out.

So they were drinking. Bourbon shots with beer chasers. Bucky was laughing. Fuck, he’d forgotten about laughing.

Music playing – fucking _Kylie_! And even though the bar isn’t much of a dancing bar Bucky was up, gyrating his hips. _Spinnin’ around_. Memories of parties in backyards, teenagers playing at sex with lewd hip movements.

‘Look at that ass move!’ shouted Dugan, banging the table and roaring.

‘Didn’t know you had it in you Barnes!’ Morita heckled, tossing peanuts.

‘You should see me doing it in hot pants,’ Bucky winked at them as he spun around again.

Another round of shots.

The door opened and a large, loud group entered.

‘Oooh, it’s the fancy kids,’ Morita said, craning around the side of their booth.

‘Fancy kids?’ asked Dernier, raising his head like a meerkat.

‘Yeah,’ Morita said. ‘SHIELD Academy.’

Bucky supressed a start. Liquid under his skin.

‘SHIELD is like the global cop – kind associated with the World Security Council,’ Morita continued. ‘They don’t fight wars like us regular grunts. And they’re better than spies because they’re _global_. Or some shit.’

‘Sounds like some critique there, Jim,’ Jones raised an eyebrow.

‘They’re not the likes of us, the Academy kids.’ Morita downed another shot.

Bucky shook his head a little, keeping quiet. He was warm from booze and shivering a little with an edge of hope he couldn’t supress. He couldn’t look out of the booth. Couldn’t know for sure. Maybe he could just stay here, Steve’s absence or presence unobserved.

‘MORE SHOTS!’ yelled Dugan, leaping up and pulling Bucky along. Was it his round?

Bucky’s eyes searched the crowd as he stumbled towards the bar. A group. All in matching t-shirts. Steve looked different now, right? A blond head. Not right though. Not here.

‘ _Bucky?_ ’ To the side. Voice as rich and deep as ever. Bucky turned through molasses to a figure moving towards him, face full of wonder.

‘Stevie?’ Bucky whispered.

He was so big, so big and shining, t-shirt stretching across his chest. Reaching out his hands for Bucky, who was reaching back.

‘You were smaller,’ Bucky murmured, and Steve smiled at him like the sun.

‘I was,’ and he was enfolding Bucky in the most amazing hug of all time. Bucky buried his head in Steve’s neck and breathed in pine and summer and soap.

‘What the fuck Barnes,’ Dugan was shouting. ‘Who is this fucking prime specimen of American manhood.’

Bucky pulled away with great effort and turned to Dugan. Bucky noticed Steve’s crew were also looking curiously.

‘This is Steve,’ Bucky said, smiling. ‘He’s a friend from school.’

Dugan raised a massive, hairy eyebrow that seemed to say _friend_. But you know, they weren’t asking or telling here.

And then Steve’s friends were descending. The blond turned out to be Clint of the good eyes and bad hearing. The famous Sam with a gap-toothed grin who Bucky narrowed his eyes at. _Sharing a room_. Sharon, who said Steve had saved her from a fake grenade. The rest of the group was less involved, less interested.

Bucky’s skin was humming, where Steve touched him frequently and gently. His arm, his hip, his shoulder.

Shots were bought and everyone squashed into the booth.

Morita was arguing with Sharon about global law enforcement. Clint and Dugan were balancing shots on their noses. Bucky was pressed into a corner, Steve staring down at him.

‘It’s so good to see you, Bucky.’ Steve’s eyes were so blue. Words were so inadequate.

‘You too, Steve,’ Bucky’s voice felt breathy. His chest fluttered.

‘What are you doing here?’

Sadness tugged a little at his joy. ‘We’re, um, on final training before deployment.’

‘Oh.’ Steve looked at him. That was the tug right there, at the corner of Steve’s mouth. It was like a fish hook in your heart, wasn’t it?

‘Yeah, yeah it is Buck,’ Steve said sadly. Oh, so he said that out loud. Fish hooks.

Steve’s big hand was resting on Bucky’s thigh. His other hand ran across Bucky’s buzzcut.

‘Shame about your hair,’ Steve said.

‘Tell me about it,’ Bucky grumbled.

‘You still look real pretty though,’ Steve whispered in his ear, breath warm and humid.

Then Sam was elbowing Steve, and Bucky scowled at him. Sam raised an eyebrow and cracked an irritatingly gorgeous smile.

Sam whispered in Steve’s ear, and a blush crept up Steve’s neck, dusting his freckled cheeks with pink. How cute were those freckles?

Steve turned back to Bucky.

‘Hey Buck, how would you like to get out of here? Are you free for the night?’

‘Yeah, yeah I’m free,’ Bucky breathed.

‘Um, Sam and I have a hotel room for this conference thing, but he can stay with Clint and Sharon if you want – ’ Steve broke off, reddening even more.

‘That sounds great,’ Bucky said, squeezing the hand on his thigh.

And they were going. Bucky’s crew were raising eyebrows and making suggestive noises, but not asking and Bucky wasn’t telling.

Then he and Steve were out in the night. It was warm, like it should be when Steve was there. The city smelt like car fumes and concrete, but Steve’s hand was comforting and calloused in Bucky’s.

They walked without talking. What was there to say that wasn’t better said by the brush of a thumb or the bump of a hip?

The hotel was a bland building. The kind that hosted conferences for spies and business types and arms manufacturers and NGOs without distinction.

In the lift they stared at one another, Bucky tracing the line of Steve’s jaw, the crooked nose, the soft dimple in his cheek. Steve looked bashful, but his eyes were just as hungry.

In the room there were two twin beds. Bucky and Steve stood, holding hands, the lights of the city filtering in through net curtains. Steve let go of Bucky and crossed the room to switch on a lamp and draw the drapes.

Then he took Bucky’s hands again, walking backwards until Steve’s legs hit the bed and he sat, pulling Bucky between his huge thighs.

Bucky gasped as Steve pushed up his shirt and mouthed across his stomach. Bucky pulled the shirt of and clutched Steve’s head, running his fingers through the soft blonde strands. Each touch of Steve’s wet mouth tingled through his body – his fingertips, the soles of his feet, his scalp, his hardening cock.

‘Oh Steve.’ Bucky stared down, giving thanks for this miracle, this dream.

Then Steve was pulling off his own shirt, looking up hesitantly at Bucky, curling his big shoulders in a little. Steve was all curves now – all rounded muscles and soft skin. It was Bucky who was hard lines, lean muscles. Steve shouldn’t look like that, hesitant and unsure.

Bucky straddled Steve’s lap, holding onto his shoulders, running his hands across the planes of Steve’s chest. And pressing his mouth to Steve’s. Yes, oh yes, this is what he remembered. The soft pout of Steve’s mouth, the parting of his lips, Steve’s tongue pushing into Bucky’s mouth, claiming him. Big hands gripping Bucky’s waist, squeezing where once he’d been soft and oh making Bucky soften again. Like his whole body had been wound tight.

Steve’s hands were over his back, nails running down his spine tracing paths of fire. Bucky moaned into Steve’s hot mouth, grinding down on Steve’s thighs, seeking the bulge in his pants. Wanting. Wanting.

Steve growled and flipped them over, pressing the length of their bodies together. He was so big. So big. Pressing their sweaty torsos together, grinding their hips. And oh, that was how they’d come last time. Bucky was liquid with remembering, desire pooling in his groin, hips bucking.

Steve’s teeth were on Bucky’s neck, on his collarbone, biting bruises and drawing pained cries from Bucky’s mouth. Steve’s hands were laced in his, holding him down.

The scrape of teeth on his nipples was unbearable, unspeakable.

‘ _Stevestevesteve_ ,’ he babbled, shouted.

Steve was tugging off his pants. Steve was naked, hovering above him, looking down with stormy eyes.

‘I’d know you anywhere, Steve Rogers,’ Bucky murmured, lost in the sky that was Steve, that enfolded and encompassed him.

Steve’s breath was loud and fast, his whole body flushed.

‘Bucky, Bucky can I? Can I fuck you?’ Steve shouldn’t sound uncertain. Steve shouldn’t sound that way.

‘Yes Steve, please. Please.’

Bucky’s legs were parted, and Steve was big and warm between his thighs. Steve was reaching into the nightstand. Then his mouth was kissing the inside of Bucky’s thighs. Gentle kisses turning to hungry bites, Bucky keening and writhing, crying at the sharp pain of Steve sucking at his hipbones, sending electricity straight to his throbbing dick.

‘ _Steeeeve_ ,’ Bucky moaned, straining against the weight of Steve’s hands on his thighs.

‘Yeah gorgeous, beautiful, look at how you mark up.’ Steve’s lips whispered across Bucky’s burning skin. Fuck yes, yes he would bleed for Steve.

Then Steve’s mouth was engulfing his cock, so hot and wet. Bucky threw his arm across his face – unbearable, unspeakable. Steve’s teeth scraped across his stretched out skin and Bucky screamed, sobbed and Steve’s tongue swiped and licked. As his cock touched Steve’s throat, as he swallowed Bucky down.

Then Steve squeezed Bucky’s balls, setting fire to his belly, to his body. Bucky was _molten_ was consumed.

A large, slick finger eased up Bucky’s crack, lingered over his hole, tracing the rim with a sharp nail.

Bucky’s breath was sobbing in his chest like a bird fluttering in a cage. He dared to look down and died, died right then with the image of Steve looking up at him, mouth full of Bucky’s cock, eyelashes thick and damp. And then his finger thrust in, burying deep in Bucky and Steve’s mouth curved as Bucky cried out and writhed, trembling hot and tight around Steve’s finger.

And Steve was fucking into him in earnest, the friction too much, not enough. His hot mouth everything, everything, the searing edge of his teeth the soothing heat of his tongue.

Bucky bore down with gritted teeth, parting and opening just a little then screaming out again as Steve added another finger too much, too soon, the perfect pitch of pain and pleasure. Bucky was fucking himself onto Steve’s fingers, seeking more, seeking – oh the scrape of nails on his prostate ripping him apart. Bucky clutched at the bed sheets and keened incoherent and animal in his throat.

The loss of Steve’s mouth, the emptiness as his fingers pulled out with a tug. Steve climbing up, bending Bucky almost in two with those massive arms on his calves. Bucky squirmed under Steve’s gaze, hole fluttering, gaping. Pressing down with a shoulder Steve slicked his cock, dribbled a little more on Bucky’s crack.

Then Steve was running his huge cock along Bucky’s slick taint, teasing at his entrance, then rubbing back down to his balls.

‘Please, Steve, please,’ Buck babbled, head thrown back, hands scrabbling.

‘What, Buck, what do you want,’ Steve’s voice was low and earnest, full of promise.

‘Fuck me Steve, fuck me,’ Bucky whispered hoarsely.

Steve planted a soft kiss on Bucky’s slack mouth then fucked into him in a single, brutal stroke, splitting him in two. Bucky arched silently, shaking, feeling his body remake itself around Steve’s cock.

Steve rested, panting into Bucky’s mouth, waiting as his trembling subsided. The moment lasted forever, and Bucky, surely, could never forget this feeling – filled to the brim with Steve, heart fucked up into his throat.

Then Steve started to thrust, small, delicate movements, pushing little grunts out of Bucky, tears wet on his cheeks. Then sharper, pulling back a little further, hips snapping a little harder. Then, with a growl, teeth bared, blue eyes almost black, Steve started driving into Bucky, body huge and burning. Bucky’s legs were screaming, his ass was ruined, he was sobbing, his cock throbbed hot and bright trapped between him and Steve.

‘Come for me Bucky,’ Steve whispered, voice strangely peaceful, tender.

And Bucky did, shooting white streams across their bellies, spasming around Steve’s cock and weeping as the friction became too much too much. And with a matching sob Steve came in him, shuddering and desperate. Bucky could feel come leaking out as Steve thrust again and again, eyes fixed on Bucky’s.

Bucky whined as Steve pulled his softening cock out, feeling the tickle of lube and come dribbling out. Steve was looking down, running a gentle finger across Bucky’s hole.

‘Oh Bucky,’ Steve whispered, voice thick. Bucky’s legs dropped back to the mattress. Steve was pulling their bodies to face one another, tenderly arranging Bucky’s useless limbs. He cradled Bucky’s face.

‘Was that okay?’ Steve whispered, face drawn with worry. ‘I’ve never – not with this body. Did I hurt you?’

Bucky pulled him close, pressed their foreheads together. ‘It was perfect Steve. You’re perfect. Like you always were.’

They fell asleep like that, sweaty and sticky. In the morning, Steve washes Bucky with cheap motel body wash that smells like roses and rubs the companion lavender-scented body lotion onto Bucky’s bruises.

‘I smell like my grandma,’ Bucky wrinkles his nose as Steve smooths his hands across the marks on Bucky’s thighs.

They kiss against the door inside the room, but on the street outside they only hug. Hold it for maybe a few moments longer than they should.

_Dear Steve_

_Those bruises you gave me lasted me a few weeks. I’m glad we ran into each other like that in Richmond._

_I’ve learned a few things about myself here. I think I like myself better when I’m shaking like a leaf. Stillness turns out to be a skill I’d prefer not to have._

_Take care of yourself Steve._

_B_

\-----

They were holed up in tents huddled against a rocky desert outcrop and the CO came in and said they were having visitors. SHIELD agents on some mission. An investigation.

Bucky knew what they would be investigating. There’d been mutters all around the camp about something that had gone down in the hills to the west of here. Some weird shit, weird weapons. Some civilians dead. Ten Rings. Bucky’s heard the locals mention the name.

But as Morita points out (quietly) just as likely that the US troops just got trigger happy and used some local bogeyman to distract attention.

‘Didn’t you have a friend with SHIELD?’ Jones asked. Clearly knowing the answer.

‘At the Academy. I guess he’d be an agent now.’ Bucky shrugged. _I know. I know he’s an agent now. He writes, even though I never write back. Because I asked him to do that once, a thousand years ago._

The agents arrived in a fancy chopper.

From a distance Bucky could see that one of them was big. Really big. Blond hair shining in the sun. Was the sun.

Dugan nudged him. ‘Isn’t that?’

Bucky squinted and nodded and slipped back to his tent.

There was no need for him to be at the briefing. The agents were there for a couple of hours, then they headed up in a jeep towards the mountains.

Some months later, Bucky was waiting up in the top of a building, in a town that was probably once a pretty nice place. His breath came shallow and calm. His hands were still. He saw movement and looked through his scope.

Improbably, there was Steve Rogers, shining and golden, wearing desert fatigues and carrying what looked like a shield painted the colour of sand. He was wearing a helmet pulled down low.

He was alone. Maybe tracking someone. Someones. He was staring at the ground intently, crouched on his haunches. He straightened and looks around.

‘Fucking dumbass,’ Bucky grumbled, staring through the scope. ‘Someone could take you out right now.’ Well. Bucky could. Maybe not many other people.

Steve seemed for a moment to look straight at Bucky. But Bucky knew it was an illusion. Knew to stay still and barely breathe at all.

Steve moved off at a jog. Fucking jogging through the desert.

He disappeared over the horizon.

\-----

Bucky couldn’t believe he was at a party at Brock Rumlow’s place. The air was hot and humid and smelled like pine. His bones were old. The callouses on his hands rubbing against the beer bottle spelled killer.

But Becca had an internship at a law firm in New York, and Evie was at college doing pre-med. And Winnie and Gracie were in a really nice little apartment in town. Winnie’s had gone back to get a diploma and was managing a coffee shop on the High Street.

Sure, Becca wouldn’t talk to him anymore, and Evie was heading that way too. Becca said that once she started earning she was going to pay him back all the blood money he used to send her through school. He told her to give it away to someone else, some worthy cause of her choosing.

But Winnie had told him that she was okay now, they have enough. He didn’t need to do another tour. He’d done his six years that he sold for that first $20,000. She’d hugged him tight and whispered _oh my baby, my boy, you were never made for this_.

She could never know what he was made of. What he’d found in himself.

Brock wanted to talk to him about some job. Something in security? Maybe he could do that for a while. Save up to send himself back to school. He tried to muster some enthusiasm for it, but he just felt tired. In his dreams he suffocated on sand and when he woke up he could taste it in his mouth.

Suddenly a ripple moved through the yard. A shift in mood. _Is that? Fucking hell?_ Whispers.

Bucky turned, having totally tuned out whatever story Jack was telling him.

And – oh. It was him. Moving through the crowd, smiling tight and fake an unhappy. Eyes searching.

Bucky wanted to cry. He wanted to run. But his body disagreed. His body sung with longing and he stood transfixed.

And so, Steve’s eyes finally landed, catching Bucky, trapping him. A slow smile spreading over his face. Like the sun rising after the longest night.

\-----

In the hotel room the Soldier washed himself, as instructed. He stepped out of the shower and stared at the tiny bottles lined up on the basin. He opened one and sniffed it. He frowned, and squeezed a glob of lotion onto his rough palm.

He looked at the mottled bruises across his ribs and slowly moved his hand. Hesitantly, he rubbed the cream into the bruised skin.

It was cool, and smelled familiar. But it didn’t feel like.

Fell like.

He remembered.

He frowned.

Lavender.

The smell.

Lavender.

The patterns of callouses on his palms weren’t the same.

As the other hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I love all your comments. We've still got a ways to go on this one. Bucky's army days were a mere prelude.
> 
> If you are looking for additional warnings - George Barnes dies in this chapter. Bucky very reluctantly joins the Army.
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/stuckyflangst) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/powerfulowl2) for powerful and flangsty commentary.


	4. And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Sometimes I try to remember how your skin felt that last time we were together. Was it soft in the same way as before, or a different way. My skin heals so quickly now I feel like I don’t carry any marks of what touched me. I wish you had clawed lines that never healed down my back. I wish I made a bite so deep over your heart that it stayed forever._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not at all Christmassy, just in case you were wondering.
> 
> It's a bit late, but also a bit longer than normal. It just kept flowing out of me.

‘So, that was Bucky?’

Steve shifted in the passenger seat. Sam was staring at the road, but Steve could see his eyebrow arching.

Steve massaged his thighs, staring down at his hands, seeing them smoothing cream across Bucky’s skin, massaging shampoo through his hair, remembering the rivulets of water running across his bronzed, muscular back.

‘Yeah, that was Bucky,’ Steve replied, keeping his eyes cast down. His chest was full of memories, on his tongue he can still taste bourbon and sweat.

_You’re perfect. Like you always were._

Steve trembled at those words, yearning to believe. But how could this huge, hulking body be perfect for Bucky? Even now after so many months of brutish basic training he was drawn with such smooth, delicate lines – Steve could see them on the inside of his eyelids – Bucky writhing beneath him, chest heaving, nipples brown and hard, dark curls on his chest matted with sweat like the short locks of hair across his forehead, lips bitten red and throat bared.

‘He’s shipping out,’ Steve whispered.

‘I’m sorry man,’ Sam said, reaching over to pat Steve’s knee.

‘I just feel like –’ Steve broke off, resting his elbow on the window and his head in his hand. ‘I feel like our timing is so bad. We’re always just catching one another passing, and each time we move further away when we part.’

The suburbs were petering out into the nowhere land of strip malls and warehouses.

‘I write to him, you know,’ Steve said to the window. ‘But I never feel like I’m saying what’s inside me.’

Sam never tried to tell him that it was stupid, being so hung up on a person he never really knew that well, to hold so fast to a couple of fleeting fucks – in a park, in the back seat of a car, and now in a hotel room. To imagine the scent of lavender and rose still clung to his skin. _I smell like my grandma_.

Steve had wondered himself, over the past year, whether he was stuck on Bucky because Bucky had wanted him _before_ – before the treatment, before this body. Steve knew he found it hard to trust people now, trust why they wanted him, what they wanted.

‘So,’ Sam said, as if reading his thoughts, ‘you heard anymore about what Pierce wants you to do?’

Steve sighed and turned back to the road. The landscape was softening out into hills, trees turning to red and gold. This was his last year at the Academy. Then they started their year of field training.

‘I don’t know exactly. Something about winning hearts and minds. I think he wants to expand the supersoldier program, but he needs support. I guess he wants me to be the face of it?’

‘Do you want to be the face of something Pierce is setting up?’ Sam wrinkled his nose. Sam hated Pierce even more than Steve.

‘God no. But I think I might have signed some things when I agreed to the treatment. Currently Erskine is holding out – he doesn’t want to try a larger trial until I’ve been monitored for longer. Apparently there was a pretty significant failure earlier in the program when he was forced to rush.’

Steve sighed and leaned his head back on the seat. He was such an idiot. Signing up to be a lab rat, thinking all it would take for him to be a hero was to be bigger and stronger. Now Pierce wanted an army of supersoldiers. But not him. Not Steve Rogers.

 _You’re perfect_.

_If only. If only that were true Bucky._

_Hi Bucky_

_Please let it at least be true that I didn’t hurt you. That you understand that I want you so badly I want to crawl inside you and devour you. But also wrap you up so tenderly. I would love to wash your hair with shampoo that smells like sunshine and the ocean._

_Please stay safe._

_S_

‘And these 100 soldiers would form the core of a new Global Security Force, built to bring peace and order across the globe.’

Pierce finished quietly, without a flourish, the screen behind him flicking to the image of a muted logo – GSF in dark grey on a pale background. Just a few lines. Nothing to demonstrate power or violence. Just like Pierce, Steve thought, with his blonde hair fading to grey, his pale eyes and pale face.

The SHIELD Board were gathered here in person. Steve, Erskine and Phillips sat at the back of the room – _in an advisory capacity as requested by the Board_.

‘And you want to use SHIELD’s resources to build this force?’ Fury asked, slouching in his seat, lazy and dangerous like a tiger which had just eaten.

‘The World Security Council has invested in SHIELD over the years, both in funds and in kind support – for example my own work for the Academy. SHIELD itself is not closely aligned with the domestic US Government, sitting in a somewhat interesting jurisdictional blind spot between Defence and Homeland Security.’ Pierce gave a tight smile. ‘This positions SHIELD well to contribute to a global defence effort without it being tarnished with the unfortunate association with the current US military interventions in the middle east.’

Dangerous in his own way, Steve thought. Maybe a snow leopard, barely seen on the white slopes until it’s too late.

Steve wiggled in his seat and Phillips stamped on his foot hard, obviously sensing objections bubbling up in Steve’s throat.

‘I think there’s a more fundamental question at play here,’ Dr Xavier broke in. ‘The scientist responsible for this program, Dr Erskine, has provided a report to the Board advising against progressing further until the full effects of the serum on the first test subject have been assessed.’

All eyes turned to the seats at the back of the room.

‘I appreciate Dr Erskine’s caution,’ Pierce gave another chilly smile, ‘but I think you can all see, both in the medical reports provided and with your own eyes, that Mr Rogers has suffered nothing but some growing pains. Steve, please.’ Pierces gestured for Steve to stand.

He did so reluctantly, pulling himself up and opening his chest, feeling the buttons of his dress uniform strain. He could feel heat rising in his cheeks – a kind of shame he’d never known before, of being displayed like a piece of meat.

Pierce gestured again and Steve sat, breath trembling with barely contained rage. Whatever he looked like, he was still a scrawny mongrel dog at heart and he bared his teeth a little.

‘But as Dr Erskine explains,’ Dr Xavier continued, as the Board members turned their curious eyes away from Steve, ‘the serum we can see is still making changes to Mr Rogers’ body. He is still growing, still becoming stronger. We should wait until the process has stabilized before making commitments like this, regardless of the broader financial and political questions, which obviously would need to be further considered.’

‘Could we hear from Dr Erskine?’ A pale, slender person shifted their eyes to the back row again. Dr Erskine stood, giving Steve’s shoulder a gentle squeeze.

‘Thank you for the opportunity to speak,’ Erskine began in his soft voice, pushing his glasses up his nose. ‘As Mr Pierce has pointed out, the serum has been very effective on Steven, and has indeed cured him of many ailments he had before.

‘However, as my report makes clear, I have not yet determined why the serum worked as it did in Steven and yet had such – extreme effects – on the previous subject.’

This mysterious _other subject_ had often been whispered of, but Steve never knew who he was, or what those _extreme effects_ were. One night Steve had come to his office after hours and found Erskine frowning over a pile of papers, a bottle of schnapps open beside him.

‘Ah, Steven, my great success,’ Erskine had smiled warmly, then given a little sigh. ‘I fear though the success is more due to you than me. I am coming to the conclusion that the serum finds what is inside us – makes good better and bad worse.’

Steve sat down across from him. ‘That can’t be true – I’m not that good a person. I’m angry, I don’t call my mum enough, I’m too sure of myself in the moment.’ _Like choosing SHIELD, like choosing the serum, like not –_

‘They are just human flaws, Steven. You are quick to anger about injustice, you love your mother, and you are quick to judge but also quick to forgive.’

So now, in the boardroom, Dr Erskine was explaining that the danger of a bigger trial was that there was as yet no way of testing who the treatment would work on, and who would _react_.

‘But surely, doctor, anyone who volunteers for a force for peace will necessarily be a _good person_ as you put it?’ Pierce asked.

Erskine stared steadily at Pierce. The silence stretched.

‘I think we both know that is not the case, Mr Pierce.’

In the end, the Board decided to defer the discussion for 12 months.

Pierce’s icy calm did not hide his rage from Steve, who was an expert in anger.

_Dear Bucky_

_My last year at the Academy has been hard. The longer I’m here the less I remember why I wanted to come here. Did I have some crazy dream of being a hero? I know that’s not what’s going to happen. More and more agents are being sent into the field overseas. What are you seeing? What do they make you do? You never wanted it did you? You weren’t an idiot like me._

_Part of me still hopes that there will be something – some difference I can make. One day._

_Part of me still hopes I will see you again._

_S_

Steve’s aim had improved a lot. Though he’d never be a sharpshooter. Something about all those years not being able to see properly. But he liked going down to the range with Clint when he dropped by the Academy. Particularly because Clint had a thing about arrows, which Steve thought were more fun than guns.

The summer he was getting his treatment Clint had been a constant, disheveled presence in his life. He should have graduated but he’d failed some classes and was staying at the Academy over the summer to make them up. SHIELD was very keen to have him as an agent. So Clint kept Steve company. Asked for help with his classes. The tutoring distracted Steve from the pain, the boredom. And it turned out the shooting range was one of the earliest activities he could do when he could still only get round in a wheelchair.

On long evenings when the pain got to much for Steve to concentrate on global politics or strategy, Clint would get him to tell stories. Steve talked about life in Centerville – growing up in a place that was so middle America.

‘When I first started school there, after Mum and me moved out of Brooklyn to find somewhere cheaper, somewhere her work was less stressful, where the air was better for my lungs, I was so fucking unhappy. I couldn’t tell her, right, that school sucked, that everyone picked on me because I was small and sick and talked funny. Because she’d moved _for me_. I would get picked on a lot, and I’d tell her I was fighting bullies. But they were mostly bullying me.

‘Then one day I’m trying to pick myself up off the ground after some asshole pushed me and my lunch over, when this tiny girl steps up and says _leave him alone_. They all just stared at her. Like, she was smaller than me and she was a _girl_. Then one of them gives me a kick as I’m standing up and she just _launches_ at them. She’s all kicks and elbows and before you know it they’re all on the ground.’ Steve smiled and close his eyes, remembering the feeling of Natasha’s soft hand pulling him up.

‘I said _I had them on the ropes_ and she said _You did not_ and we were best friends after that. Even though at that point in school, boys and girls usually weren’t friends. My mum loved her. She’d stay over all the time. She always called me on my bullshit.’

Clint looked thoughtful. ‘How do sleepovers work?’

Steve looked at him. ‘Have you never had a sleepover?”

‘No,’ Clint shook his head. ‘I literally grew up in the circus. We travelled around all the time. I sort of learned weird bits and pieces, and I played with the other circus kids, but we all just lived out of vans.’

‘Well,’ Steve shifted in the bed, gritting his teeth, ‘I can’t speak for anyone else, but Natasha would come over – maybe after school on Friday, or at lunch on the weekend, and we’d hang out and play chess together or –’

‘You played _chess_ together?’ Clint laughed. ‘I feel like that’s not typical.’

‘Whatever,’ Steve waved a hand, ‘it represents _playing_. Or we’d go outside and Natasha would teach me martial arts moves, or my mum would help us cook stuff, or we’d read comics together. And we’d eat dinner with my mum, then maybe watch a movie. We both really liked Disney cartoons, or Studio Ghibli.’ Steve threw Clint a glance, seeing him open his mouth. ‘We can watch some later. Anyway, my mum would set up this little trundle bed on my floor and Natasha would sleep there and I’d sleep in my bed, and after she’d turn out the light we’d tell each other stories.’

‘About what?’

Steve laughed.

‘Superheroes. We really liked superheroes. We were both going to be heroes when we got bigger.’ Steve clenched his fists into the sheets. He wished Natasha was here now.

‘What about when you got older?’ Clint asked.

Steve’s eyes fluttered closed.

‘A lot of it was the same. We were allowed to be in the house when my mum was on evening shift and make dinner ourselves, or eat pizza. We watched different movies. When we went to my room we talked about our crushes. Well, I usually talked about my _crush_. Natasha was always a bit cagey on the romance front.’

‘You never made out?’ Clint asked.

‘Sure, we tried a few things together – kissing, touching. But we weren’t really into each other like that.’

‘You miss her?’

‘She’s my best friend. She’s the one who tells me when I’m an idiot.’

‘I could do that,’ Clint offered.

‘But you’re a idiot too.’

Clint laughed.

‘A fucking stapler Clint.’ Steve grinned at him and Clint grinned back.

Clint – much to his delight – was now involved in SHIELD weapons testing, specifically new projectiles. Thus the arrows.

‘So, next year you’ll be Agent Rogers,’ Clint said and Steve released an arrow, hitting the edge of the target. He knew Clint’s strategies but he still hadn’t quite developed the focus.

‘Trainee Rogers,’ Steve cocked another arrow.

‘Sure,’ Clint shrugged, ‘but they’ve probably got special things planned for you.’

The arrow didn’t even hit the target this time.

Steve sighed.

‘They keep trying me with different weapons, and always being disappointed.’

‘Surely you’re a hand to hand combat man?’ Clint elbowed his arm and then winced theatrically.

‘Fuck you.’ Steve elbowed him back, getting a yelp. ‘Apparently I need to be able to _take out targets at longer range_.’

‘Wanna take out some targets at the Triskelion?’

‘As long as that’s a reference to drinks and not picking up.’

_Bucky_

_Sometimes I try to remember how your skin felt that last time we were together. Was it soft in the same way as before, or a different way. My skin heals so quickly now I feel like I don’t carry any marks of what touched me. I wish you had clawed lines that never healed down my back. I wish I made a bite so deep over your heart that it stayed forever._

_I think I dream of you sometimes. I wake up hard and sweating._

_I think of you often – are you in the mountains or the desert. We often have soldiers here, telling us things, training us. I always imagine you into their stories. Then I try to imagine you a happy ending._

_Is it selfish that I imagine that ending involves me?_

_S_

The morning started like any other. Sam throwing Steve’s shoe at his head, Steve grumbling as he pulled on his running gear, Sam making fun of Steve as he stumbled to wakefulness and then Steve sprinting off, making fun of Sam as he lapped him repeatedly.

It sat warm in his heart, Sam swearing at him under a tree when Steve finished his last lap, walking arms pressed together back to the Academy.

Where there were police cars gathered, FBI, SHIELD agents.

Steve and Sam sped up to a jog.

There was Peggy, turning her head. Was she _crying_?

She started towards them.

‘Steve, oh Steve.’

They met and Peggy put a hand on his arm. Tears streaked her face – she looked more shaken than he had ever seen her.

‘Steve, it’s – it’s Dr Erskine –’ Steve drew a sharp breath.

‘Someone – he’s been – he’s been killed.’ Peggy’s voice cracked and her hand squeezed Steve tightly. Sam was wrapping his arm around Steve’s other side.

His legs left so far away from him. He could see the urgent scurrying of the cops, the agents, all on phones or carrying things, going somewhere.

‘When? How?’ Steve asked, words sticking in his throat.

‘During the night,’ Peggy said. ‘He was shot in his office. They ransacked his office, the lab. No one knows how. To get through the security, to not trigger any alarms –’ Peggy paused.

‘Someone _inside_ ,’ Sa, asked incredulously.

Steve heard a low growl starting in his throat. Felt the quiver of rage, of grief. Sam and Peggy gripped him tight, as if to restrain him. But Steve was wiser than he once was. He knew that he could do nothing charging in there like a bull. No one expected him to wait, but he had practised waiting. All these years waiting until he could see an opportunity to search for Natasha. He could wait now. Wait until the reports were published. Pore over the files.

He forced himself to relax, to sag, to hold Peggy tightly and let her sob into his chest.

Later he called his mother and cried into the phone. She crooned and hushed down the line and he wanted so badly to be near her.

Two FBI agents questioned him in one of the classrooms, a police officer hovering in the corner, Agent Hill lounging by the window. Her sharp presence was a comfort.

‘Do you know where Dr Erskine kept his notes on your treatment?’ one of the FBI agents asked him.

‘My medical notes were in locked filing Cabinet in the lab. He liked to take handwritten notes.’ Steve could picture his cramped handwriting, his careful notation of Steve’s pain, his responses, his measurements.

‘But what about things like the formula for the serum?’ the second agent asked. Agent Hill shifted slightly.

‘He kept it in his head,’ Steve answered. He could tell they thought he was lying, but it was the truth. ‘He said it was too dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands. He memorized it all. He just recorded the responses.’

Steve could see the outline of it. They’d killed Erskine to steal the formula, to keep it for themselves – whoever _they_ were. But he had fooled them and died with his secret.

Steve knew, even as SHIELD drew his blood in gallons and scientists pored over it, that the serum was no longer present in his veins. Erskine has explained that it started a process of generation and regeneration. It was a catalyst that entered his body and transformed it, was itself transformed.

They had taken Steve’s medical files, though – the paper versions. For whatever good that would do them.

_How long will it last?_

_I don’t know Steven, I don’t know._

_Can I die?_

_Of course, you aren’t invincible._

_Will I age?_

_Yes – probably. But it is likely to be slow. It might be not at all, then all at once. Are you sure about this?_

_Yes, yes I’m sure._

He hadn’t been, he wasn’t.

_Dear Bucky_

_Something terrible happened today. I don’t know what that means to you. I don’t know what terrible things you have seen and done._

_Dr Erskine, the professor who was in charge of my treatment he was murdered by someone. Murdered. For the formula for the serum they gave to me._

_Now there’ll probably only be me. Made like this._

_I don’t think they know what to do with me._

_S_

In the end Steve found his own weapon.

Trainee Rogers had largely been deployed to secure more funding for SHIELD’s Specialist Skills Research program. He was the poster boy – transformed from a queer, scrawny, sick kid to the All American Hero. Not that anyone talked about the first part.

He was dragged around by the promise of a posting, of proper training. In the evenings he would read over and over again the reports into Erskine’s death, trawl through SHIELD reports for any suggestion of something lurking – treachery. _An inside job_.

Clint would occasionally send him scraps of information, gossip, through the secure email server they’d set up. Which Steve also used to email Bucky. Who never replied.

Steve would read the list of the names of the dead every day, just to be sure. Years later, he would still recall each one. Occasionally a mother, a sister, a brother, a father, a partner would approach him, would speak a name, and Steve would remember – the date, the unit, the cause of death.

Such a small and insufficient act, he would think, as the person would squeeze his hand, shed a tear, look amazed.

It was at the opening of a VA Centre in Brooklyn. A local Senator was cutting a ribbon and giving a speech. Her face was flushed and earnest, talking about the need to criticize the war and not the soldiers.

Steve was standing to the side, eyes wandering across the crowd. But it was a sound he heard. A movement distinct from the shuffle of the crowd – more purposeful. A click –

Steve leaped without thinking, throwing his body in front of the Senator. He felt the bullet tear through his shoulder, searing and bright. Other agents grabbed the Senator and covered her. Steve hit the ground then bounced up almost immediately, locking onto the figure in jeans and a hoody. Unremarkable, unpanicked.

Steve cut through the crowd, which parted for him. He cursed his stiff suit, his shiny shoes.

He saw the figure reaching for the gun again and Steve grabbed at the open door of a taxi, ripped it off its hinges and held it up as a shield, still sprinting.

His arm absorbed the force of the bullets lodging in the steel.

The figure twisted to turn down an alley and Steve hurled the door, catching them square on the back and toppling them to the ground.

Then Steve was on them, holding them down. Far behind still was the sound of sirens, shouting voices.

Steve pulled the hood down and the man looked back at him and grinned, then bit down hard. It took a moment for Steve to realise what had happened. The man spasmed, frothed at the mouth a little, then went limp.

‘Fuck,’ Steve sat back, suddenly aware of the pain in his shoulder, the blood soaking his cheap suit.

Later, Fury called him into his office.

‘What has the investigation turned up, sir?’ Steve asked.

Fury just waved a hand. ‘We’re onto that, don’t worry. I wanted to talk to you about something else. Your _weapon_.’

Steve breathed out and clenched his fists. _Patience_.

‘Sir?’

‘A _shield_ Rogers. It’s perfect. Like that car door. Except better designed. It’s a _symbol_. We’ll get Stark to make you one from some fancy material. He loves that shit.’

Fury waved again.

Steve was dismissed.

‘It’s not such a bad choice, you know,’ Sam said, after Steve had whine to him on the phone. ‘It sort of suits you, right. Protecting people.’

‘Except I’ll be able to throw it long distances and kill people with a single blow,’ Steve pointed out.

‘Yeah, but it’s the _symbol_ ,’ Sam replied.

‘That’s what Fury said,’ Steve sighed.

Symbols were becoming important, it seemed. Tony Stark had escaped imprisonment in Afghanistan and announced he would stop selling weapons. But he had built himself a suit of armour. To _defend_.

When his Mum saw the picture of him standing in his dark blue suit, holding a silver shield with a star, she said, ‘Oh Stevie, it seems so right. You always just wanted to protect people.’ He felt a sort of shame when she said it, and more intensely so the first time he saw a body of a man that he had killed – the side of his head smashed in.

Because after they decided on a weapon, they decided they could use him.

SHIELD was in the Middle East. Not at war. Not in the war. But chasing terrorists.

And Steve could chase. On foot across deserts where no one was watching for a single man. Through the mountains in Afghanistan over terrain that would have slowed anyone else to a halt. Subsisting on hydration gel and protein bars. Clint had given him a cheap-looking cell phone whose battery lasted 1000 hours, and which recharged via a nifty solar charger. Mostly Clint sent him emoticons or short unpunctuated rambles.

 **_clint:_ ** _fck fd is awfl here fkn cabg :-(_

Sometimes he got the camaraderie of other agents – sharing tents, sharing a mission. Sometimes they dropped in US units. Steve looked out for Bucky, never sure where exactly he had ended up. Once in Iraq he thought he caught sight of a sharp cheekbone, a soft lip, but when he looked up there was just a group of sunburnt strangers.

But he was alone a lot. It felt wrong. He ached for a team around him. Like that was how it was meant to be. Like this universe was wrong somehow.

Sometimes he felt eyes watching him in abandoned towns – maybe just one other person, each of them trapped alone in hell.

In later years, people would talk as if The Captain was born when he got the serum. But he was just a soldier for years before he because The Captain. It was in 2010, as the US was in the process of withdrawing from Iraq, leaving so many ruins behind, that Steve was in Tikrit, chasing ghosts and demons that would rise in years to come, despite any actions he took. A bomb went off nearby, and Steve saw a stone wall tumbling towards a group of children in the street. In a few strides he was there, covering them with his body and his shield as stones battered down. Crashing and screaming filled his skull with a pitch of pain he wore so often now – his enhanced hearing detailing each distinct shriek and despairing groan.

A photographer had captured the shot – his huge body curled over the children, shield on his back – like Atlas holding up the world.

The photo was plastered over front pages everywhere and SHIELD was _claiming_ him. Because he was theirs. They made him.

 _This represents SHIELD’s role as a protector, a defender._ Alexander Pierce’s face on TV screens worldwide. _Captain Rogers represents how SHIELD, like the World Security Council, uses its strength and power in the pursuit of peace._

Captain. That’s how he became a Captain. The Captain. Because symbols were important.

He would still sketch sometimes, holed up alone in a cave, in a hole he dug for himself in the ground. Draw himself as a dancing monkey. Draw lines of Bucky’s face, his thighs, his ribs, the small of his back. Unconnected.

**_clint:_ ** _did u say ur friend Natasha went 2 Red Room Academy? bin doing some work in Russia & ive heard a few things cn follow up if you want_

 **_sgr:_ ** _Yes, that’s where she went. Please look into it._

 **_clint:_ ** _aye captain ;-)_

 **_sgr:_ ** _Fuck you_

On his trips back stateside over those years of the war he learned other things about himself. Learned that the molten desire he felt for Bucky was singular, unrepeated.

There were other feelings. The feeling of holding a person down, of making them fall apart, of carefully measuring out his strength to lay marks across their bodies. And the warm joy of soothing their skin afterwards, stroking their hair, pressing kisses on their skin.

He often felt guilty afterwards. Not because of what he’d done, but because these feelings were mere shadows of what he had felt with Bucky. It didn’t seem fair.

But perhaps none of these people saw him anyway.

He felt it so intensely after he got back after the photo. Now he was _famous_. Trotted out in press conferences. _Protector. Defender. Hero._ None of those words fit, like they did when he dreamed them with Natasha when they were children.

After round after round of palm pressing, politicians, press, shouting faces of anti-war protestors, they finally flew him back to the SHIELD HQ in Virginia. Across the landing strip he could see the Academy building rising. _I promise I haven’t forgotten_. He whispered it to Dr Erskine, to Natasha, to Bucky. All the people he had failed to hold close, keep safe.

Sam was standing there waiting for him, leaning on a cane, his other arm held wide.

Steve stepped into the hug and lifted Sam slightly off the ground so he could wrap both arms around Steve.

‘It’s so good to see you Sam,’ Steve said, squeezing his eyes tight.

‘You too, buddy.’ Sam’s voice quivered slightly.

‘I’m so sorry, Sam.’

‘Thanks, Steve,’ Sam clutched him a little tighter.

Later, down at the Triskelion, they both nursed beers.

‘He was such a great guy, Steve,’ Sam ripped a beer coaster with his strong, delicate fingers. ‘He’d come through the Airforce, you know. At first he thought I was an asshole because I’d been to the Academy. But then we started to fly together and it was like –’

Sam broke off and stared at the cardboard confetti spread across the table.

Steve stayed silent. He didn’t know. What it was like to work with someone else. They kept him alone, apart.

‘I don’t know what it was. We didn’t really talk about it. But sometimes we’d be out on missions, just the two of us, and we’d curl close together –’

This Steve understood a bit. How in the eyes of the world there might not be that much to tell. No promises made, no vows exchanged, no photos for the mantlepiece. But something that walked with you every single day.

He pressed his calf against Sam’s good leg and Sam gave him a watery smile.

They talked about getting an apartment together in Brookville. Weird to think about living in the town, when they’d always just thought about this whole place as an extension of the Academy. But Steve would be at HQ and Sam had an instructor job while his leg healed.

‘I guess this is what we signed up for?’ There was a question in Sam’s voice.

‘A cause,’ Steve said, a little bitterly.

‘Yeah, that,’ Sam laughed.

‘You’ll be a great teacher, Sam,’ Steve gave his hand a squeeze. ‘It’ll be a nice change.’

But first Steve had to go home, visit his Mum.

She wrapped him in the most wonderful of embraces when she met him at the airport. He was wearing a baseball cap, but people kept staring at him. A few people were taking photos he was pretty sure.

But Sarah Rogers was here, and she still loved him, even if she didn’t know what he’d done.

She cooked him shepherd’s pie and took him on a drive to see all the blazing red maple trees, fiery among the evergreen cypress and pines. The air smelled of smoke and fall, and they collected chestnuts from the tree in the backyard to roast on their woodfire. All the things Sarah had come looking for when she left the city.

At the farmers market on Saturday they ran into Brock Rumlow. Sarah had her disapproving face on when Brock invited Steve over for drinks and a cook out at his parent’s place. Brock’s smile was too big and his handshake too firm.

‘I’ve been working in private security, so we probably have more in common that we used to, Rogers.’

Steve got the sense Brock didn’t mean walking around a mall with a handgun. He felt his lip curl at the thought of Blackwater, of the other anonymous mercenaries he’d seen deployed into dark corners like poisonous rats.

Brock gave a little sneer, obviously sensing Steve’s reaction.

‘I might see you there, then.’ Brock slapped Steve’s shoulder and nodded at Sarah. ‘Mrs Rogers.’

‘He was an awful boy and now he’s an awful man,’ Sarah said, glaring after him.

‘Mum, I thought you told me I should believe everyone can get better,’ Steve nudged her on the arm.

‘Now you’re a grown man you can know the truth – which is that everyone can but not everyone does,’ Sarah said primly. She caught Steve’s eye and they both started giggling. It felt so _good_ to be laughing with his Mum. Like cream soothed on a bruise.

He wasn’t going to go to the drinks, of course, until later that day when Sarah said, ‘Oh you know who I saw in the shops the other day? Winnie Barnes. She said her James is back in town.’

Steve’s heart expanded impossibly in his chest.

Winnie was standing at the kitchen bench, holding a bread knife poised in her hand and staring into space.

‘It’s hard that our boys have to go away, and come back again with stories we know they’ll never tell us. Hurts they’ll never let us heal.’

Steve stood in silence, watching her lips curve down and a shadow pass over her face.

She turned back to him and shook herself a little. ‘Sorry, darling, you don’t need to hear that.’

Steve wrapped his arms around her and she buried her face in his chest. She was so small now.

She made them sandwiches and they ate them together in the kitchen, drinking tea.

‘I might go to Brock’s place after all,’ Steve said.

Sarah raised an eyebrow.

‘Brock’s an asshole, but there might be some good people there,’ Steve shrugged.

‘Yes, yes there might well be,’ Sarah smiled into her tea.

\-----

There was an autumn chill on the air but the backyard was packed. There were grills going, and a couple of people were braving the heated pool.

Steve had failed to think this through properly. He was being mobbed by people whose names he didn’t recall, or who he mostly recalled because they had been horrible to himself or others. People kept calling him Captain Rogers. Even though Pierce had effectively invented that as a SHIELD rank because his focus groups had revealed it was the rank that people respected the most.

‘Please, just Steve,’ he said again through gritted teeth.

Then, across the lawn, like in a movie, he saw Bucky Barnes. Hair grown out from regulation length a little, curling over his forehead. Soft-looking blue sweater stretched across a chest grown broader; tight black jeans straining across thick thighs. Steve’s belly warmed; his pulse quickened. Then Bucky turned and caught his eye and Steve felt his face stretch into a stupid grin. In a flash Bucky’s expression change from wary, guarded, to fresh and open as when he was 18, looking at Steve across this same yard.

Steve stopped bothering being polite to people who had never given him the time of day and pushed towards Bucky. Who was there, in his arms, in his soft sweater smelling like smoke from the grill.

‘Bucky, it’s so good to see you,’ Steve whispered into the shell of Bucky’s ear.

‘You too Stevie,’ Bucky pressed wet lips to Steve’s throat.

‘Wanna get out of here?’ Steve asked. ‘I only came to see if you were here.’

‘You could’ve just called, you idiot,’ Bucky laughed, pulling away.

Steve shrugged. ‘Didn’t have your number.’

Somewhere off to the side Brock was standing, looking unimpressed. Buck was pressing a bottle into Steve’s hand and taking the other, pulling him towards the back gate, to the park.

‘I was thinking we’d go on the swings but I don’t think we’d fit,’ Bucky frowned at the offending play equipment. ‘Maybe your ass could, and my shoulders, but we’d probably break it.’

Steve laughed and his chest was so _loose_. Because Bucky knew – Bucky had been there too. But he still had his calloused palm in Steve’s – a pattern of callouses Steve could trace and recognise.

They sat on a bench instead, under a huge tree.

( _Not the one from before – was Bucky saying something?_ )

‘You’re real warm now, Steve,’ Bucky said, pressing himself against Steve’s side. Steve was only wearing a green Henley. He did run hot now, and the cool autumn air was pleasant on his skin.

‘Yeah, it was good on cold nights in the mountains,’ Steve replied, watching Bucky’s throat move as he swallowed his beer.

‘You were in Afghanistan too?’ Bucky asked.

‘Yeah, I was all over the place. You know – SHIELD is “keeping the peace” so I was in Iraq, Afghanistan but also a bit in Syria, Turkey.’

Bucky nodded and licked his lips.

‘I was mostly in Iraq. I was a sniper.’

‘I spent a lot of time alone, too,’ Steve said quietly, turning his hand palm up on his knee. Bucky’s hand crept into his and their fingers curled together.

Steve wanted to cry for those boys into the park so many summers ago. But when he looked up through his eyelashes at Bucky’s face – cheekbones sharper now, unsoftened by puppy fat; fine lines gathering at the corners of his eyes, his mouth – he wouldn’t change this Bucky for any other. This man contained that boy, contained the confused and fearful young man, contained nights of silence and death.

‘What are you doing now?’ Bucky asked, looking at their hands, lit faintly by distant streetlamps and the stars.

‘I’m still working for SHIELD. But back stateside now. There’s political stuff –’ Steve waved a hand towards the clusterfuck that was the World Security Council trying to raise a standing army. ‘They want me to be the face of – some things. I’m not sure those things are okay. Easier to work that out here, so I agreed to come back.’

Bucky nodded. ‘I’m sure you’ll do the right thing, Steve. You always did.’

Steve gazed at Bucky’s face, so open and trusting. ‘I didn’t – I haven’t Bucky. None of us who were over there can say that. I know that about war now.’

Then Bucky’s arms snaked around him, pulling him close, and they buried their faces in one another’s shoulders. Bucky smelled like autumn to him now – the smoke clinging to him. Summer had stolen away from them now.

‘Come back to my place,’ Steve murmured into Bucky’s collarbone.

‘You’re childhood bedroom, Steve?’ Bucky gave a muffled chuckle.

‘I fantasised about you enough there, Buck,’ Steve pulls back with a grin.

‘Did’ya have a crush on me, Steve Rogers?’

‘You know I did, Bucky Barnes,’ Steve growls softly, and kisses Bucky slow and hard and hot, biting down on his bottom lip and tasting the sweet steel on the blood that rises to the surface of his skin. Bucky moaned and trembled beneath Steve’s hands. The breathed each other in, Bucky’s fingers curling around Steve’s biceps, Steve’s hands encircling Bucky’s ribs, feeling them expand and deflate like a bird.

Steve rose from the seat, holding Bucky’s hand. Walking, it was easier to talk. Bucky talked about the guys who’d been with him in the bar that night, how they’d shipped out together. Told funny stories about Morita fucking with COs who didn’t know what was happening, and Dugan’s unauthorised missions out in the mountains in Kurdistan helping kids with their goats.

Steve told some stories about – well mostly about long runs. Bucky smiled, even though they weren’t funny.

Steve let them in through the back door through the kitchen. He filled glasses of water for both of them and Bucky drank his with his eyes fixed on Steve, water trickling down the lines of his neck. His pupils were huge in the darkness.

Steve put both the glasses on the sink and took Bucky’s hand again, leading him up the stairs. Steve’s room was large and at the back of the house. With only him and his mum, even in a small house there was lots of room for both of them.

He let go of Bucky and crossed the room to switch on a lamp beside the bed. When he looked up Bucky was standing, loose limbed, looking around Steve’s room. The desk – now clear except for a few photos and his laptop – which used to be piled with books and papers. The wall was decorated with old drawings and paintings Steve had picked up at art shows and thrift shops. A few superhero posters.

Spread over the bed was a tobacco leaf quilt.

Steve toed off his shoes.

‘You can get undressed Buck,’ he said in a low voice, pulling Bucky’s eyes back to him.

Bucky’s lips parted and he reached behind his neck to pull of his sweatshirt and t-shirt. His chest was corded with bulky muscles, his nipples dark, a trail of hair running between his pectoral muscles and across his stomach. His abs were defined, but still covered by a soft layer of fat – like the softness Steve remembered still lingered on his body.

Steve pulled off his socks, eyes still fixed on Bucky.

Bucky reached down to pull his shoes and socks off – graceful and balanced. Steve stood in his jeans and Henley – the moment felt heavy and he let his arms hang relaxed at his side. The hot urgency of youth was gone. He wanted to linger on this pleasure that would pass too soon, regardless.

Bucky’s chest was flushed as he reached to unbutton his fly. He stepped out of his jeans and Steve drew a sharp breath. Bucky was wearing lacey white panties – the creamy lace contrasted against his bronzed skin, the delicate fabric against the hard lines of his muscles.

‘Bucky,’ Steve murmured, ‘look at you.’ He was sure his voice was full of wonder. Because who could have imagined this – Bucky Barnes, sad-eyed and worn by the war, still with these soft, pretty things underneath.

‘I just like to have something nice on, even when no one sees,’ Bucky bit his lip, thumbs hooked into the waist of the panties.

‘I know sweetheart,’ Steve said softly. ‘I know you just wore them for yourself. That’s why it’s so special you’re letting me see.’

Steve held out his hands. ‘Come over here – keep them on.’

And Bucky was there, in front of him. Steve traced his fingers across Bucky’s face – the furrows on he forehead, the dusting of freckles on his nose, those crinkles around his eyes, the lines around his mouth shaped by hard grimaces where there should only have been smiles.

His lips were so soft and Steve couldn’t help but kiss them. So gently this time, his fingernails scraping down Bucky’s biceps then across the curve of his chest as Steve deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue over Bucky’s, feeling the silken warmth of his mouth, tasting his moan.

Steve ran his nails across Bucky’s nipples – rewarded with a little cry and Bucky’s hips rubbing against Steve’s jeans.

‘Oh baby,’ Steve licked across Bucky’s jaw and bit gently at his ear. ‘You lie down on the bed for me.’

Bucky stepped back and sat on the edge of Steve’s single bed, then shuffled back to lie himself out, eyes fixed on Steve the whole time, lips parted.

_How long has it been since someone treasured you like you deserve?_

Steve pulled his Henley over his head, staring at Bucky laid out before him. His dark leg hair petered out near the top of his thighs. Steve could see the curve of his cock straining through the panties, a trail of hair leading down to the waist band. _White_. Not like he’d been dressing sexy, but like this was just a special secret. Shared now with Steve, stepping out of his jeans revealing his own bright red boxer briefs, which he knew stood out against his pale skin.

He crawled over Bucky, looming over him on all fours.

‘I’m going to kiss you everywhere, Bucky Barnes,’ he whispered. And he started with his sharp cheek bones, the tip of his nose, the forehead crinkled now with pleasure the dimple in his chin. Across that enchanting expanse of throat his ran his tongue then bit down with his teeth and left marks across Bucky’s collarbone, the muscles of his neck. Down his arm to nuzzle in his armpits, draw whimpers from the crook of his elbow, the inside of his wrist. Then to kiss the callouses on his palm – which drew maps of death Steve knew only too well.

Over his chest Steve bit deep into the flesh, as if he could devour Bucky, relishing the pained cries, the little sobs as he worried at Bucky’s nipples until Bucky writhed and the skin pulsed like fire under his mouth. An oh the planes of Bucky’s abdomen, the flex and tense of his muscles under Steve’s mouth, the flutter of his ribs under Steve’s fingers.

‘ _Stevestevestevestevesteve_.’ Bucky’s voice was wet with tears. Steve could taste the salt on his skin, like all of his flesh was crying. He sucked hard at Bucky’s hip bones, where the bone sat so close to the skin – a place of transition, of joining. He could feel Bucky’s cock shifting beneath the lace, but merely passed over with a breath, kissing and sucking down his magnificent thighs scraping his nails across the back of Bucky’s knees, worshipping his ankles, his feet.

Then moving up again to finally pull Bucky’s panties down, so carefully, free his red and weeping cock, press kisses along the length, lick the bead of pre-come from the tip while he presses a saliva-slicked finger into Bucky’s hole, delighting at the guttural moan as he buries his finger to the hilt. And pulls out again, moves to press a deep, wet kiss on Bucky’s lax mouth, taste the salt of tears there.

Steve reached into the nightstand for his lube, then flipped them over, smiling at Bucky’s surprised face, settling him over Steve’s hard cock. Bucky threw his head back as he wiggled on Steve, whose own cock was still trapped in his briefs.

‘You want to fuck yourself on me, Bucky?’ Steve growled, squeezing Bucky’s hips. ‘I want to fuck you while you’re still so tight for me, but you can take your time.’

Bucky nodded, eyes flickering hungrily over the expanse of Steve’s chest, squeezing his pecs, tracing his waist.

Bucky took the lube and slicked his fingers, reaching back around, eyes locked onto Steve, pupils dark and tongue flickering between his teeth. Bit his bottom lip as he fucked into himself. Steve reached behind to feel one finger buried in Bucky’s ass, then a second, his rim trembling, all the while watching the flush rising on Bucky’s cheeks.

Bucky pulled his fingers out and tugged at Steve’s briefs. Steve grabbed then and ripped them along the seams, his cock popping free.

‘ _Ooooooh_ ,’ Bucky moaned, grabbing Steve’s pulsing length with two lubed hands. Steve groaned, thrusting his hips up.

Bucky moved quickly, slicking Steve’s cock then poising himself, thighs flexed.

‘So beautiful, Bucky, so beautiful,’ Steve growled. Bucky threw his head back and directed Steve’s dick to his entrance. Steve felt the tight ring, which had only taken two fingers, still quivering with tension; watched Bucky bite down on his lip, screw his eyes shut; and they both cried out as Steve’s tip pushed in. A rush of sensation ran along Steve’s cock, sent fire deep into his belly.

Bucky moved his right hand behind to brace himself on Steve’s thigh. Steve felt Bucky’s passage flutter and relax around him and Bucky bobbed a little, rising and lowering himself again, taking Steve deeper. Steve moaned and dug deep bruises into Bucky’s sides, holding himself taut, muscles trembling. His body screamed to fuck into Bucky, to tear him open, but he restrained himself, wanting to draw the moment out like a perfect silk thread – strong and cutting through flesh like butter.

Bucky undulated his hips and Steve is lost lost in the warm slide of his body so tight it must be as glorious agony for Bucky as it his for him. Fucking lower and lower until they both sobbed in unison as he bottomed out, completely enfolded by Bucky’s body.

Bucky shifted his body, leaning forward and resting his hands on Steve’s chest. Steve ran his hands across Bucky’s face – through the sweat in his hairline, the tears in his eyes. His face was flushed and broken open. Steve still waited, still waited for him.

Slowly Bucky rose up – panting, digging his fingers in to Steve’s chest – then sank down again with a guttural cry. Again and again, agonisingly slow. Steve gritted his teeth and breathed, holding himself still as he ran soft fingers over Bucky’s skin.

He felt lava gathering in his gut, felt his nerves trembling, singing, shrieking as the friction of Bucky’s walls rubbed scorching along his cock. He surged up, grabbing Bucky tight around the waist, bit into his neck until he tasted blood. Pulling Bucky’s cheeks apart he pulled his cock out and drove his back in, harder and harder and harder until Bucky trembled on the edge of breaking. He fucked him, harder than he had fucked anyone, though not as hard as he could. No ordinary person could take that.

But Bucky took so much so much all sinews and liquid under Steve’s hands, all tights heat around his cock. Then he was crying out low and desperate and coming over their bellies, squirming as Steve kept fucking into his ass _please steve please steve please steve_ and Steve was coming filling him slipping him over and bending him in half to watch his come spilling out as he kept fucking kept fucking into Bucky’s raw hole watching the white trickle down his crack his softening dick on his belly he head thrown back and mouth open as Steve filled him again giving a few more thrusts before pulling out and coming one final time across Bucky’s heaving chest their release mixing on Bucky’s pink chest mixing with sweat and blood sticking their flesh together as Steve collapsed across Bucky.

They lay there for a long time, hearts hammering, slowing, Steve’s hand carding through Bucky’s sweat-wet hair.

After an eternity that passed too briefly Steve shifted and slipped out into the corridor, into the bathroom, feeling the quiet of the house close around them. Sarah would be home in a few hours, off the night shift. Steve wiped himself down quickly and economically. He wet a few face cloths and picked up a towel.

Back in the room, Bucky was still spread across the sheets, achingly soft and shining in the lamp light. Steve carefully wiped him down, smoothing over his palms, the soles of his feet.

‘Turn over, sweetheart,’ Steve whispered, and took another cloth, carefully wiping down Bucky’s loose reddened hole, the small of his back, between his shoulder blades.

The bed was too small, but they curled up together under the quilt, feathering kisses across one another’s skin.

They slept.

\-----

In the morning they woke to the sounds of Sarah in the kitchen below. Bucky pressed a long kiss to Steve’s lips.

They showered together, big bodies crammed together, and gave each other quick handjobs, cries muffled in wet kisses.

In the bedroom, Steve passed Bucky some clean briefs as they dressed, and Bucky blushed, shoving the lace panties into his pocket.

‘I really liked them, Buck,’ Steve teased.

Bucky smiled clear and without shame.

‘It’s just good to be able to wear nice things.’

Downstairs Sarah looked up in delight at the sight of Bucky bashful and rumpled at the door with Steve.

She made piles of pancakes and set out maple syrup and whipped butter. Bucky ate five and Steve ate twenty and Sarah beamed the whole time.

On the street as they farewell, a soft shadow falls over Bucky’s face.

‘I think I’m going to do this job Rumlow was telling me about – private security.’

Steve frowned a little.

‘I just – I want to save up, maybe go to college. My sisters and mum are okay now. I thought – I thought I could try to do something for me.’

Steve rubbed his arm. ‘You deserve that Bucky, just – be careful okay. Some of those companies aren’t any good.’

Bucky nodded.

‘I know Steve, I saw stuff overseas too. I think HYDRA is okay. They subcontract for SHIELD sometimes, Rumlow said.’

‘Oh.’ Steve was surprised. He made a note to look into it when he got back to Brookville. ‘Well, maybe we’ll run into each other then Bucky. I’d really like to stay in touch this time.’

Bucky touched Steve’s cheek. ‘I’d like that Steve. I did read all your letters though, even when I wasn’t replying.’

Steve kissed him gently on the lips.

‘I’ll always keep writing, Bucky.’

Steve watched his retreating back as he walked away, looking back over his shoulder a few times.

Later, he sat at his desk drawing – Bucky’s body spread across his bed; Bucky standing in his cream panties; Bucky walking away, head turned back, a smile haunting his lips.

\-----

The Soldier was searching through drawers. His flesh fingers touched something soft and textured. Something shivered inside him.

He looked curiously at the pile of lacey underthings. Black, red, pink. His eyes caught on the pool of white against the colour.

His lips parted a little and he pulled the garment out, feeling the lace cool against his skin.

He moved the fabric to his metal hand and closed his fist. When he opened it again, the lace was still the same. He put it into one of his pockets.

Later, afterwards, he pulled the fabric out. This time, when he closed his fist and opened it, the cream was stained with smudges of drying blood.

Nothing was immune, it seemed.

Something cried out inside him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to those that have commented and kudosed. I always love hearing from you, criticism constructive, desconstructive and unconstructive also welcome.
> 
> This chapter had a lot of plot and I know I pack stuff in (!), but I hope you enjoyed our boys' reunion, even so sadly brief. I assume if you're with me, you're on board for things getting sadder before they get better.
> 
> Next chapter will be a little different - some switching POV, some new characters and some returning. Hoping for an early update because I'm home all week.
> 
> Come see me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/stuckyflangst) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/powerfulowl2)


	5. Unremembered lads that not again will turn to me at midnight with a cry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sections of this chapter mirror the events of The Avengers. A few differences are - no Thor and no Hulk. It was just too much to force into the story.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter - Bucky's torture is described briefly here. If that's a concern just stop reading at 'He wakes up" and start again after the break.
> 
> I've also fixed a few continuity errors from earlier on. In particular - the name of the town SHIELD is based in I've decided is Brookville, and Bucky's second sister is Evie not Alice. I made a few tweaks to the opening as well. I keep changing the story summary too. 
> 
> I love your commitment to my WIP.

Routine, run of the mill stuff that SHIELD agents didn’t have time for. That was how Brock described the work they’d be doing. Occasional private security jobs for powerful businessmen, or for big conferences.

Bucky didn’t love the first conference he was assigned to. Arms dealers. Meeting at the Trump International in DC. With Tony Stark out of the picture for a while now there was a lot of jostling in the world of weapons tech. Hydra Inc was providing security.

At least Bucky was on sniper duty. High up in the atrium, surveying the floor below. Brock was down there, probably getting a hard on from being to close to so many powerful people. Bucky sighed softly, letting his eyes drift across the room. Not exactly the life he dreamed for himself. But he wasn’t sure anymore what he had wanted. The inchoate dreams of a teenager don’t seem solid enough to point to and say – I would have been _that_. A mechanic? An engineer? A teacher? A poet? What did it matter? Now he held a gun in his hand, dreamed in blood.

Afterwards they all went out together to some shitty overpriced sports bar, and Brock tried to get Bucky to talk about the war.

‘So, special ops. You must’ve done some crazy shit.’

Bucky just took a sip of his beer and grimaced.

‘Rollins was over in Afghanistan; he’s got some crazy stories.’

Rollins was beefy and mean and Bucky had no desire to hear him tell stories which he had heard hundreds of times before from men who like to boast about killing. Bucky missed the quiet, critical camaraderie of his fellow Commandos. Missed the look of disappointment in Morita’s eyes when Bucky told him about this job. The stab of envy he felt when Dugan talked about enrolling in university, going into teaching, or when Dernier got out early with a translator job at the UN. The sorrow he felt when Gabe decided to go career.

 _It’s just a couple more years_ , he’d said to Morita. _I’ve got my sisters and my mum set up; I just need a bit for me. It’s not so bad. It’s just security_.

Morita had scoffed. Would scoff even harder to see Bucky protecting arms dealers.

Just a coupe of years, Bucky promised to himself, trying not to listen to Rollins telling a story about beating an informer and hanging him up in the street.

\-----

Steve asked Maria about SHIELD using subcontractors.

She was a Senior Agent now in Domestic Operations. Steve languished in Special Programs, which seemed to mostly consist of meetings with politicians and sitting like a slab of meat in the SHIELD boardroom while they discussed whether and how to advance Erskine’s work. For some reason the board liked to have him there. Even though his blood and tissue had proved useless, he was a symbol now of the possibilities, the threat.

Maria was doing real work. She narrowed her eyes when Steve asked about subcontractors and shook her head.

‘No, SHIELD doesn’t subcontract operational work out.’

Steve pursed his lips. ‘My friend was sure about it. That was one of the things that made him think the company would be okay.’

‘And what were they called?’

‘Hydra, I think? Not an acronym I’m pretty sure.’

A few days later Maria appeared as he was on his morning run. Steve slowed for her, looking across at her serene expression, her ponytail bouncing.

‘It took some digging, but SHIELD does have some security subcontractors, including your Hydra. Another gang called AIM. They’re just paid against the _catering, facilities and other_ budget line. Kinda hard to find, but not hidden as such. When I checked with Sitwell he said that they mostly just do events security. Stuff it’s not worth wasting operations resources on, like agent time.’

‘So, all above board then?’ Steve asked casually.

Maria jogged in silence for a few moments.

‘Yeah,’ she said finally.

\-----

Bucky knew in his bones that this was bad news. After a series of security jobs, a bit of training (as if he needed to know more ways to hurt people) Rumlow had come to tell him he was _finally moving up into the big leagues_. As if that was something Bucky should be pleased about.

The team Brock had assembled was driven in a van to the Hydra corporate HQ down in Richmond. Bucky stared out the dark tinted windows, heart catching at the memory of his night with Steve here, in that cheap motel. He could almost smell the cheap lotion on his skin. Steve was in Virginia somewhere. They texted a little, Steve talking about his morning runs, or complaining in vague terms about his job.

 **_sgr:_ ** _I’m not even pushing papers just smiling at people_

 **_buckybarnes:_ ** _ur really bad at that Steve – who would get you to smile? ;-)_

 **_sgr:_ ** _shut it you_

Bucky sighed. While the Hydra HQ were here, Bucky was based up in New Jersey, living in a cheap apartment with a futon and a TV and not much else. When he was overseas he’d thought a lot about the apartment he’d get. How he’d decorate it in patterns and colours, pile blankets and pillows on every available surface. Maybe get a cat.

Instead, he’d collected some shitty furniture off the street and just sat himself down. _Don’t punish yourself_ Morita had told him over the phone, as if he could see into Bucky’s dark, cramped studio, taste the shitty coffee Bucky made every morning, see the takeaway containers and the empty fridge. See the messages Steve sent that Bucky didn’t reply to – left hanging.

**_sgr:_ ** _I think about you a lot Buck. Maybe we could talk sometime_

Brock was quivering with excitement. Apparently personal meetings with Herr Schmitt were rare. And Brock was heading up this assignment. Something abut safeguarding goods that were being transferred.

Herr Schmidt was thin and ascetic looking. His mouth was pulled into a constant sneer. His Hugo Boss suit was well cut but in a dark, unfashionable color. The meeting room he gathered them in was similarly dark and dated – the furniture heavy and ornate, the paintings on the wall scenes from Greek and Nordic myths in heavy oil paints. Above Schmitt’s head, at the head of the table, was a large triptych – the serpentine heads of the hydra rearing above Heracles; the hydra seemingly dead at Heracles’ feet, heads severed; and finally, Heracles departing the scene, back turned to the turbulent shadows where the hydra was rising again, twice as many heads as before.

That’s not how Bucky remembered the story going.

‘Mr Rumlow and team, good to meet you.’ Schmitt gave a pained smile to the 10 men sitting in straight-backed, mahogany chairs. Bucky’s skin crawled at the sight of him. Maybe he could find a way to get Steve to check up on this guy as well.

‘This job is incredibly important for Hydra Inc. We are offering a service that few other firms can to a client who – while they must remain anonymous – I can assure you is one of the most important and powerful people of this century and the last.’ Schmitt’s voice was lightly accented – posh English with undertones of German and overtones of generic North American. He reminded Bucky of an insect – a praying mantic perhaps, with dry hands and a sticky mouth.

‘Mr Rumlow will brief you on the details. I am here to emphasise how important this job is, what an honor it is to have been chosen for this job, and to assure you that the company fully supports any actions you need to take to ensure the cargo is delivered to the client.’

Bucky’s stomach churned and he shifted in his seat. _Any actions_.

‘I also want to assure you’ – Schmitt caught Bucky’s eye, as if sensing the tightening of his muscles, the twitch in his jaw – ‘that the cargo itself is incredibly valuable. It relates to incredibly important medical research, that could change the course of the coming generations of humanity.’

Schmitt stared into Bucky’s eyes. Bucky could see belief there, fervour. In Schmitt’s words he could hear the certainty of the claim.

Bucky knew that truly believing you were doing the right thing for humanity didn’t always mean the rest of humanity would agree with your judgement on the matter.

**_sgr:_ ** _Or I could visit you. I have to come to NY to go to the UN next month_

\-----

Clint had been squirrelling away at this Red Room question.

Steve had talked to him about this Natasha so many times Clint almost felt as if he knew her. Beautiful, brave, sarcastic, brilliant. Steve had so many stories about her – his face would go all soft and sad when he told them. But visions of another Steve – snarky, funny, bursting with feeling – would break through the stiff, controlled exterior that Steve had cultivated the whole time Clint had known him.

And when Steve turned those puppy dog eyes to Clint and asked if he could just check up, see if he could find anything out about this _Red Room_ , how could Clint say no?

Clint was often on missions by himself. He had special skills that allowed him to get into places no one else could. Take out targets no one else could. On the ground, in polite company, he was clumsy and thick tongued. Up high on rooves in trees on rafters, or crawling through vents or passages, he was graceful, nimble, silent.

It was in a shitty town in Siberia that he heard mention of the Red Room. A drunk guy in a bar who thought Clint was a circus performer down on his luck, abandoned in the wilds of Russia. The guy made a vodka-soaked comment – part lewd part fearful – about the Red Room girls.

Clint put in a request with SHIEDL intel for any information on the Red Room. The response came back via secure message on his SHIELD phone.

_Red Room (defunct): Soviet era espionage training facility for orphaned girls and teenagers. Techniques included brainwashing, forced sterilization, possible medical modifications. Decommissioned in 1991. No longer operational._

The message was followed up with a phone call, which was a bit unusual. Deputy Director Sitwell of all people.

‘Barton, your request caught my attention. Have you heard anything to suggest that the Red Room is operating again?’

Huh. Deputy Director Sitwell. Clint didn’t much like him. Seemed like a pen pusher and a bureaucrat, but he still taught the interrogation units at SHIELD Academy. Enjoyed the role plays maybe a little too much. Watching the students try to break one another.

‘Nah, just a drunk guy reminiscing about the good old USSR. I just wanted to confirm it wasn’t anything that needed chasing down.’

‘You’re there following up on those weapons being shipped from China?’ Sitwell asked.

‘Yep,’ said Clint. He let the coffee he was holding slip out of his hand and crash onto the floor of his hotel room. ‘Awww, coffee.’

Sitwell snorted down the phone. ‘Well, keep on that Barton, no need to worry about the Red Room. That’s ancient history.’

The line went dead.

Clint Barton’s other skill was making people think less of him, getting himself dismissed from people’s minds.

_Those girls out there in the Red Room, they will dance for you, fuck with you, but they would rather slit your throat. Don’t believe it when they get down on their knees for you – they’re pulling the knife out of their boot._

The guy had a cut across his face that looked weeks old, and he was definitely talking in the present tense.

‘So, your friend’s parents, they _sent_ her to this Academy?’ Clint asked over a beer in Steve and Sam’s apartment, spinning a spoon through his fingers.

Steve nodded. ‘Yeah. For some reason she had to go there to help her brother. She had this Uncle who was in the FSB, who was really rich. I think he could support Natasha’s brother, Andrei, but only if Natasha went to this institute or academy or whatever.’

‘Hmmmm,’ Clint flicked the spoon up into the air and caught it again. ‘Andrei Romanov?’

‘Yeah. I didn’t know him well. He was older than Natasha. In business of some sort.’

‘And the Uncle?’

‘No idea. Her father’s brother I think. So probably also Romanov.’

‘I’m trying not to scare any horses, but I’ve got a few leads to follow up.’ Clint reached out and patted Steve’s hand.

‘Please find her for me, Clint.’ Steve gave him that mournful, shiny gaze.

‘Fuck man, I’m on it.’ Clint clutched his heart. ‘No need to bring out the big guns.’

Steve sighed with all the air his big chest could hold. ‘I just feel so useless. I’m so obvious, I can’t even try looking without drawing attention to what I’m doing.’

‘It’s okay, Steve,’ Clint assured him. ‘That’s why you’ve got friends.’

Steve rewarded him with one of his rare, slow smiles.

Sam clattered through the door and looked at them both, Clint still clutching his chest and Steve smiling like a bride.

‘Fuck, he used the fucking eyes on you again didn’t he?’ Sam chortled.

\-----

Bucky’s chest felt like it was enclosed by iron bands. He’d had this feeling before, the whole time he was in the army. The feeling of being held in place, watching himself doing something he knew was wrong.

The were stationed along a road – a country road somewhere in North Carolina. They were theoretically Strike Team B. Team A, it seemed, was to guard the packing of the shipment and escort it to its rightful destination. They were back up, in case things went wrong and the truck was stolen. For some reason, the client knew that if the shipment was stolen it would be taken down this road.

Bucky was perched on an overpass, practising his breathing drills. He remembered that time he saw Steve in the desert through his scope. How unafraid he was out there, exposed. He remembered of Steve’s muscles bunched under his skin when he held bucky down, how his stomach rippled as he fucked up into Bucky. He remembered Steve’s scowling face at school never failing to stand up and say _this is wrong_.

Something was wrong here.

‘Okay Strike Team,’ Brock’s voice crackled through the comms. Most of the team was positioned alongside the road, hidden in the bushes. Bucky could catch the occasional shiver of the foliage out of time with the wind. Or a darker shadow in the falling twilight.

‘We’ve had word that the shipment has been highjacked. I repeat, the shipment has been highjacked. It is now our mission to highjack it right back again. Take up your positions. There are three trucks heading our way. Over and out.’

Bucky’s position was right here, on the overpass, watching the road.

‘Trucks approaching, over,’ he whispered into his commlink. The truck lights were off, but Bucky’s sharp eyes caught them as they crested the horizon.

Bucky crouched down, hiding himself completely. They would be watching the overpass – an obvious site for an ambush. Bucky wasn’t needed for the next part.

He heard the explosion, the screech of brakes, a nauseating crash. Bucky stood, rifle cocked, scanning the scene.

Strike Team B was rushing the trucks. The first was on its side, no movement obvious. It had caught the force of the blast from the row of explosive across the road. Rubble littered the scene – indistinct blobs in the deepening dusk. The second and third trucks has skidded to a halt. The door of the third truck was flung open and the ech9 of automatic fire filled the empty air.

‘Truck 3 has eight armed persons, not cargo, over,’ Rollins hissed into the comm. A moment later a grenade clattered into the trailer. Four figures leapt from the truck firing, dropping and rolling. The truck exploded, sending flames and chunks of metal flying.

‘Fucking idiot,’ Bucky muttered.

A few of the STRIKE team and the armed figures were exchanging fire. Bucky kept his scope trained on the middle truck, which had the cargo. Brock and three others were approaching it from the side. Bucky could see Rollins and his team had taken out two of the agents. A third was crouched behind the fiery carcass of the third truck, the fourth was out of sight.

‘Barnes, now,’ Brock commanded, and Bucky let of three rounds through the windscreen of the truck, cracking the bulletproof glass.

In the moment of distraction Glover and Ramirez attached charges to the trailer door. Then someone was leaping out of the passenger door. Bucky shifted and shot the figure through the knee, wincing at the scream that cut through the night. _Better than being dead my friend_.

The charges went off – perfectly calibrated to break the lock and preserve what was inside. Ramirez and Glover advanced, Davis crawling over from the direction of the third truck. When Ramirez tugged the door open there was a pause. All gunfire ceased for a moment. Even the figure on the ground clutching their knee subsided to whimpering. Brock still had his gun trained on the driver’s door.

Then a small shift in the trailer. Davis let off three shots and there were three thumps inside the second truck. Glover and Ramirez charged forward. Ramirez’s body jerked – a shot to the shoulder. Then crashes and cracks from inside the truck.

‘ _All clear_ ,’ Glover’s breath was heavy in the comms. ‘Cargo is on board.’

The driver’s door flew open and a hail of bullets flew out. Rumlow just gave a wicked grin a let of a single spray of automatic fire. The shooting stopped.

Bucky scanned the scene. There was one person missing – from the third truck. There was still one person crouched for cover, trembling, likely out of ammo.

Then three things happened. Rollins crept up on the huddled, now unarmed figure, and shot them through the head. Brock walked round to the person Bucky had shot through the knee and shot them with a handgun three times. And through the scope Bucky saw on their flack vest SHIELD printed.

As darkness descended another truck approached, the STRIKE team started to shift the cargo.

‘You got eyes on the final person Barnes?’ Brock asked.

Bucky scanned the roadsides, stilling his heart and his breath, shutting down his mind. And there, in the shadows, he could see the signs of someone moving through the bushes, away from the road, towards the forest.

‘I think they got away,’ Bucky replied.

Brock shrugged. ‘Whatever, not important.’

**_sgr:_ ** _God I’d love to kiss you again Bucky_

_Not if you knew what I’ve done Stevie, not if you knew._

\-----

Sam sometimes didn’t understand how Steve Rogers had pulled him in. The idea that he would be best friends with an all-American hunk of beef and symbol of global law and order would have made little Sammy back in Harlem scoff.

But here he was, living with a huge, white, blonde, angry supersoldier, and participating in the secret investigation of the organization they had both as young, fresh-faced 18-year-olds committed the best years of their life to, in the misguided belief that SHIELD was fighting a better war.

Now Sam was here, using his teenage delinquent lock-picking skills to break into Jasper Sitwell’s office.

Sam was actually really enjoying teaching, which had surprised him a bit. Maybe some of his youthful adrenaline addiction has subsided a little after watching his friend-teammate-partner-lover fall from the sky. Maybe he liked gently berating his charges, waving his cane at them as they swooped through the air, cussing them through the comms.

But Steve Rogers had to decide that Sam needed a _secret mission_.

‘Clint said that Sitwell called him after he put in an intel request on the Red Room. It just seems weird. There’s nothing in his HQ office, but maybe he keeps something at the Academy.’ Steve had turned those ludicrous eyes onto Sam – all cornflour blue and thick lashes. Sam _knew_ those were all Steve Rogers. Nothing serum enhanced there. And those were the true source of his power.

So here Sam was, deploying safe cracking skills taught to him by one Clint Barton. Fucking Sitwell was into vintage safes apparently, so all Sam needed was a stethoscope. He really must feel secure here, in his little castle. Sam had hated Sitwell’s class. He’d done the required Interrogation 101, but there was no way he was getting into the advanced units. It was just torture, as far as Sam was concerned, and he wanted no part of that.

The safe clicked open. It was full of neatly piled manila folders. Sam didn’t try to read the papers. He quickly photographed all the pages, catching a few words here and there.

_Shipment manifest - Invoice Hydra Inc – Steve Rogers –_

Oh that last one. What is this? Sam pauses for a moment. Is this a photocopy of Steve’s medical file? Cramped handwriting. Notes – _significant pain from quick growth – bones likely fracturing slightly and reforming – stretchmarks appear and vanish – spinal column re-fusing –_

Sam touched the pages for a moment. He hadn’t known Steve then, the summer of his treatment. Had maybe seen a skinny, angry kid around the Academy, but Sam was the year above. And none of this was marked on his body. No scars.

Five minutes later Sam was slipping back out the door. In the corridor he slowed and started leaning on his cane again. Mostly it was just a prop now.

Sitwell sneered at Sam fumbling to get into the office he shared with Sharon Carter. Sam dropped his cane and hopped a little as Sitwell sailed by.

The best technology in the world at his disposal and he uses an old-fashioned safe. Fucking idiot.

When Sam showed Steve the photos, on the brick of a laptop Clint had give Steve years ago, Steve passed over his own files with barely a glance. It was the Hydra Inc invoices that made him draw a sharp breath.

“Bucky,” he said in a pained whisper.

Part of Sam thought that Bucky Barnes was more a dream of Steve’s than a real man. But when he put he hand on Steve’s shoulder and felt the trembling of his muscles, he knew the love itself was real enough.

\-----

Clint was on a rooftop in Budapest when Natasha Romanoff, Black Widow, appeared in front of him. He had no doubt that she was here to kill him, and no doubt that she could, easy enough. While Sitwell had bought his deflection, and he hadn’t made any further inquiries through SHIELD, the Red Room had more ears on the ground, and Clint had been asking questions.

‘I understand you have been looking for me,’ she said, head titled. She was even more beautiful in person – red hair in a perfect braid, body curving softly beneath her black suit. She wasn’t wearing any makeup. Her lips and skin were pale – the green of her eyes burning in her face. This wasn’t a seduction mission obviously.

‘I have.’ Clint stood with his arms by his sides. ‘Steve Rogers asked me to find you.’

That porcelain face cracked with grief; then gone in an instant leaving only the glow of tears in green eyes.

‘He wouldn’t want me back. Not now.’ Her accent was clean and neutral, no hint of the mid-West there anymore.

‘He would, he does,’ Clint replied. ‘You know Steve. Once he decides to believe in someone he never lets up.’

‘He might forgive me, but SHIELD won’t.’ She looked so sad and young. Clint knew at least some of what she’s done, and it made his heart break a little.

‘Let me take you in. Steve and I will do everything we can for you. I won’t pretend that SHIELD is going to want to save you, but you must have information you can trade.’

The sun was setting over the rooftops, clouds streaked with pink. She frowned into the distance. A father, a mother, a brother, an uncle. Steve Rogers. Weighed on a scale. Ties of blood against the bright, faithful love of friendship.

‘We should shoot each other, just a little,’ she said. ‘Make it look like I fought.’

When Clint called SHIELD for extraction from the rooftop he called Maria directly. They had an understanding about what matters needed her personal attention. He and Natasha sat together. She grimaced at the arrow in her left leg, cuffed hands resting on her bent right knee. He pressed a shoulder wound with his flannel shirt. _It has to look like I tried to disable you at least a bit – of course I’d go for an arm._ He liked her. Little spider, trapped in webs spun by others.

Maria flew the chopper herself. She conducted a quick, neat, but not thorough search of Natasha and found three knives and a handgun. In the chopper, Dr Cho tended their wounds. At HQ Clint helped Natasha out on the landing pad. A couple of agents met them and led them to one of the upper floor holding cells.

‘You can stay,’ Maria told Clint, who’s arm was now in a neat sling, shoulder bandaged. ‘Rogers is on his way.’

Natasha and Clint sat in a silence which had quickly become familiar and comfortable, Natasha with her hands still cuffed. They both knew she was barely contained. She still had at least two knives on her, and her feet were free, the wound in her thigh not enough to disable her. Her braid was a little rumpled, tendrils of hair escaping and curling around her face. She looked tired – dark rings under her eyes like bruises on her pale skin.

The door flew open and Steve burst through, his own hair mussed up and wild, his cheeks pink. He was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt.

And the look they gave each other was something else. Clint would always fail to describe it. Steve let out a little sob, like a small boy might do. Natasha stood up on shaky legs and Steve was holding her, holding her up, crushing her slight, strong body in his huge arms. And Natasha Romanov, the notorious Black Widow – assassin, spy, seductress – was sobbing into his chest.

Clint left the room to find a key, so she could hug him back.

\-----

In the end, it was the Chitauri invasion that saved Natasha.

Steve had been working tirelessly to make a deal for her, arguing she would be an invaluable asset to Steve. They’d done something to her – something to make her a little faster, a little stronger, a little quicker to heal. But Steve didn’t mention that.

Steve was also trying to get in touch with Bucky. He wondered what he had done that the universe returned him Natasha, but snatched Bucky back into the shadows and silence again. He stared at his huge hands, his oversized muscles, and thought perhaps his sin was hubris, thinking he was necessary to save the world.

**_sgr:_** _buck, I’m in NY again soon. I’d love to see you_

_**sgr:** so much to tell you – I’d really love to talk_

_**sgr:** I mean it, it doesn’t have to be more than that_

Fury wanted him to meet with Tony Stark, talk about some side project Fury had in mind. Fury’s eyes were on a very different horizon to Pierce’s, Steve often thought. A different history, some things that had gone down in the 90s. _A different category of threat_. Steve thought it was an in for Natasha.

_I think a special team would benefit from her skills._

_I’m not so good on the intelligence front. (Fuck you Barton.)_

_What about Sam for air support, when he’s back in action._

Fury wanted him. Steve wanted his people. So he took Natasha with him to New York. Bucky still hadn’t responded, but in his pocket Steve had an address in New Jersey. His heart, his mind, were bursting with the strain of all the secrets, and his skin longed for Bucky, his bones ached to hold him.

Stark seemed alright. Talked A LOT but he seemed to take a sort of elder brother interest in Steve. He scoffed at the suit Fury had mocked up for Steve – blue with a grey SHIELD logo on the front – and started babbling about fabrics and features and colour schemes.

Then suddenly there was an alien god in Stuttgart, and they were all boarding a plane.

Natasha and Steve gripped hands together when Fury said – _Barton’s compromised_. And her face was like steel when she fought him on the helicarriers, using the chain on her cuffs to cut off his airflow until he passed out. She kneeled beside him and stroked his hair until he came to, confused and horrified.

‘I know,’ she whispered, ‘I know.’

When the Chitauri started pouring out of the sky, Steve just snapped the cuffs and the crumbled.. They fought like a well-oiled machine – all those self-defense classes in the back yard still there in the muscle memory, however differently shaped those muscles were now.

And after, after the World Security Council almost destroys Manhattan, after Tony Stark saves them, as they’re sitting eating shawarma in the ruins of the city, Steve got a text on his work phone.

**_Unknown number:_** _Hi Steve. Brock here. Sorry to tell you man, but Barnes died today. He was in Manhattan. Died fighting._

Steve didn’t know what the noise was, until everyone turned to look at him. That noise – that noise is the heart being ripped out of him, of his soul being reduced to ruins. But unlike the city, irreparable, unsalvageable.

‘It’s Bucky,’ he moans, ‘it’s Bucky.’

Natasha wraps him in her arms, murmurs to him, strokes his hair.

‘He was here,’ Steve chokes out. ‘He was here, and I didn’t save him.’

\-----

Bucky was sent into New York while the aliens were still there. The whole of Strike Team B was on salvage duty. Maybe the aliens would win, maybe not, but Schmitt wanted all the tech he could get.

The shrieks, the teeth, the death – you always thought it couldn’t get any worse, but it did.

And at some point, Bucky couldn’t pretend anymore. Couldn’t pretend that snatching rifles and armour from dead aliens was the right thing to do in this mess. He started shielding civilians, shooting down the alien joyriders, started running into buildings that were collapsing, started directing people underground, into the subway tunnels.

Brock swore and hissed at him through the comms. Then said – ‘ _well if that’s how you’re playing this Barnes_ ’ and cut out.

Later, lying with his left arm trapped under a chunk of masonry, dust settling on him like snow, Bucky wished he’d responded to Steve sometime in the last couple of months.

_I miss you too Stevie. All my good dreams are about you. I’m always hungry for your kisses, always aching for you to flay me open and break me apart, put me back together like I was precious._

The light started fading. He thought he saw Iron Man flying through a hole in the sky.

At least he saved a few people today.

He wakes up in agony, strapped to a table. He’s naked and they’re injecting liquid ice into his veins. He screams.

He wakes up in agony. There are fire ants all over his skin. He screams.

He wakes up in agony. His bones are breaking and healing and he can feel every fracture every time and there are millions. He screams.

He wakes up. Someone asks him his name. _Bucky_ he says _Bucky_. Bright agony shoots through his skulls, his brain, every nerve in his body. He screams.

He wakes up. Someone asks him his name. He screams.

He woke up strapped to a chair. _You are the Soldier_ , someone said. _I am the Soldier_ he said. Later, they cut him open, drilled into the bones of his shoulder. He screamed and screamed and screamed. _I can’t believe he’s not passing out_ someone said. Eventually he realised that screaming didn’t help. He stays awake and tears fall out of his eyes. They don’t help either, but he can’t seem to stop them.

He woke up and they gave him a gun. A man smiled at him. They told him who to kill and he did. _Who are you?_ someone asked, before he died. _I am the Soldier_ he said.

\-----

_Dear Bucky_

_I’m sorry I didn’t save you. That I didn’t know how close you were. I helped with the clean up in New York, and I kept wondering where you died. Brock said you died fighting, but I bet you died helping people. I know some of what you did, some of what Hydra got you into. What SHIELD got you into._

_There’s not a name for whoever they are, that are doing these things. They just use whatever name is most useful at the time. Who’s in, who’s out, it’s not clear to me yet._

_But I’m working on it._

_That’s what I’ve got now. This mission. My friends._

_But so much of me is dust and ashes now. I visited your memorial. Your mum said they never found your body. Vaporised I guess. I promise I’ll visit her whenever I go to Centerville. I tried to talk to Becca, but she hung up on me. Evie and I talked for a while, cried together. I gave Gracie a picture of you in a frame.  
_

_I promise I’ll keep writing, even though you (will) never write back (now). Oh my heart, Bucky Barnes, oh my heart is broken.  
_

_With all my love forever  
_

_your steve_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I enjoy all comments - positive, negative, ambivalent. I just love to chat! For example, how did the switching POVs work for you? I've wanted to do Clint witnessing the Steve and Natasha reunion for a while.
> 
> Also find me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/stuckyflangst) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/powerfulowl2). I welcome asks, prompts, musings and rants.


	6. Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Soldier woke he was always cold and confused. His body remembered being here before. He would weep a little, but his tears were always drowned when they sprayed him with cold water as he crouched naked on the tile, concrete, dirt floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your comments and kudos as always. It's been a bit of an intense weekend for me, and it's nice to spend some time on this story.
> 
> There are some descriptions of violence/murder perpetrated by the Soldier in this chapter. Fairly brief, but be warned. Also more descriptions of Bucky's suffering.

Steve took Natasha home to Sarah.

When they had first spoken about what happened to her, Natasha had looked at him, her eyes blank, not even her old tell-tall tremble of the lips.

‘Steve, I have done terrible things. You think you want to save me, but I’m not her anymore, I’m not _good_.’

Steve looked back at her across the table in the little interview room, his big hands clasped together.

‘I don’t love you on condition that you’re _good_ , Nat.’

She blinked.

‘I’ve killed people. I’ve fucked men then slit their throats. None of them were bad people. I’ve destroyed companies and ruined people’s lives.’

Steve focused on her, unwavering. ‘I know. I’ve listened to all the interviews. I know all that.’

He could hear Natasha’s breath, controlled and steady. Her green eyes had always held depths, held secrets. He could almost imagine now they were darkened from the layers of pain she was hiding.

‘They told me – they told me I had to go, to help Andrei. That if I went, he would get support he needed for his business career here.’ Her voice was steady and smooth, like it always was when she spoke about her parents. ‘My uncle met me at the airport in Moscow, then took me to a hotel where there was a woman. He introduced her as Madame B. My uncle said _you are serving your family and you will learn to serve humanity_. Then he left.’

Steve’s heart was loud and fast in his ears. He wished they were curled up in his bed at home, whispering secrets in the dark. Natasha’s hands rested on the table, nails cut short.

‘Madame B – I never heard her called another name – took me to a private airport somewhere, and we flew out to somewhere in Siberia. She wasn’t pleased to have me. I realised later that she usually gets much younger girls.’ Natasha’s gaze wavered a little, shadows moving in the green. ‘I think I was promised to her earlier. But my parents moved to the US. I think maybe they thought they could get away from – certain family obligations. But they were wrong.’

Steve finally broke. He leaned forward and put his hands over Natasha’s. He should have held onto her more tightly before. She looked down at their hands and her breath hitched.

‘Once I got there – I think because I was older – they used some _extreme_ techniques on me. To get me to _comply_.’ She laid the words out carefully, her hands cold under Steve’s palms. ‘But they also said that if I didn’t – do as they said –’ she broke off.

 _As they said_. What had they said to her? Made her do? His sweet, fierce friend.

‘They said,’ she continued, ‘they would punish my family.’

And maybe they had been telling the truth there. Andrei’s fortunes seemed to be falling. A possible transition from business into politics had fallen foul of a scandal – a mistress, embezzling, charges being brought.

‘But when Clint mentioned you name, up on the rooftop, I suddenly thought – who is my family? Those people who sent me away, who sold me into _that_.’ Natasha spat out the word, fury finally rising to the surface. ‘Or was it Steve Rogers, who still remembered me, still looked for me, after all these years.’

Tears stood in Steve’s eyes and Natasha squeezed his hands in her hands so small and strong.

They were neither of them criers, really. It was only when Steve took Natasha back to Centerville, pushed her through the door of Sarah’s house, and Sarah wrapped her in the tightest hug, that Natasha started sobbing. Sarah crooned and rocked her while Steve went and put the kettle on, his shoulders shaking.

That night they all curled up on the couch and Sarah piled them all with quilts and crocheted blankets and braided Natasha’s hair while they watched My Neighbour Totoro.

Sarah set up the trundle bed in Steve’s room, but Steve pulled back the covers on his bed and they crawled in together, Natasha curling up against his chest.

‘So, Rogers, you gonna tell me about your boy?’ she murmured.

And Steve did. Told her everything about Bucky – about each of those four precious times Steve had seen him. About how no one else had every come close.

‘When I was him it was like I’m more myself, entirely myself.’ Steve stared into the dark. ‘I feel like I will never have that again, now that he’s gone.’

Natasha hugged him close and didn’t try to reassure him. They both knew that there were things you could lose and never get back again.

Steve thought of that feeling the next day, as he sat in Winifred’s kitchen drinking coffee. She looked so old – her face furrowed by grief. On the wall was a frame with two pictures of Bucky. One of him lounging on the grass, laughing, in shorts and t-shirt, his hair pulled back in a bun. Steve thought of hot nights and chlorine. The other was him, maybe home on furlough, hair army short, bigger, in a black t-shirt and jeans. He was looking to the side of the camera with a small smile playing around his lips. Smell of autumn leaves and smoke.

‘Becca still won’t talk about it,’ Winnie sighed. ‘I don’t even know what she’s thinking. His life insurance payment was split between me and the girls. Grace will use hers for college, Evie wants to buy an apartment, but Becca won’t touch hers. I just don’t know –’ Winnie looks at another photo on the mantelpiece, of Becca and Bucky in their early teens, arms slung around each other.

‘They were so close when they were young. Becca never understood Bucky joining the army.’ Her voice was thick with tears. ‘It was a terrible choice for him to have to make.’

‘I know, Winnie, I know,’ Steve took her hand.

She looked up at him with sharp eyes. ‘I guess you do.’

\-----

Sam and Clint came down a couple of days later. Sarah beamed with delight and fed everybody.

They were all gathered in the lounge room, eating home-baked cookies.

‘So,’ Steve said, curling against the end of the couch to face Natasha, who was sitting under a pile of blankets at the other end. ‘There are some things we need to tell you about SHIELD.’

‘All of us,’ Steve gestured to Sam and Clint, ‘have noticed that things aren’t quite right at SHIELD. I want you to know, so you understand what you’d be saying yes to if you joined. I think it will make you safer, but not safe.’

Natasha sipped her tea, looking girlish with her French braid and oversized green sweater – something Sarah had knitted for Steve. ‘So, what have you got?’

‘First, Erskine’s death. I think he was murdered because he refused to expand the supersoldier program. I think they tried to steal his formula. They wouldn’t have found all the details because Erskine kept some of it in his head, but with my file and other information, they could have been working on imitating his work.’

Natasha shifted and flexed her hands. Stronger than they had been.

‘Second, when Clint tried to find out about the Red Room, SHIELD files said it was no longer operational _and_ Jasper Sitwell called almost immediately afterwards, following up.’

Clint nodded. ‘Yeah man, it was totally sketchy. The dude has literally never called me before and has almost nothing to do with field agents.’

‘Yeah, he’s mostly a pencil pusher,’ Sam said. ‘Which is why what I found was literally receipts – for security companies that SHIELD seems to be subcontracting. They make it look like it’s for events that don’t need agents as security, but when I crossed checked the amounts and payment dates it doesn’t match up.’

‘Look at you, doing paperwork,’ Clint punched him in the arm. ‘I bet you can’t wait to get flying again.’

Sam glared at him. ‘What it _does_ match up with,’ he continued, ‘is a bunch of incidents that were reported by agents and informers but then seem to have gone nowhere. Hijackings of classified cargo. Unexplained deaths of officials, scientists. In the US and overseas.’

‘What else?’ Natasha asked.

Steve groaned. ‘Nothing concrete. I _really_ think Pierce has something to do with it. He was pushing the supersoldier program. He’s been working his way up the World Security Council ladder. He keeps pushing for the Council to have more power to keep the peace.’

Natasha hummed and put her mug down on the floor. ‘You mean Nobel Peace Prize winner Alexander Pierce?’

‘Yes,’ Steve covered his face with his hands.

‘Okay,’ said Natasha, and looked around the room. ‘I know you won’t like this, Steve, but I think the key here is patience. Who do you trust?’

‘Hill, definitely,’ Clint sad immediately.

‘Probably Director Fury.’ Steve sighed. ‘He’s an asshole, and he has some bad ideas, but I’m pretty sure he’s okay.’

‘Okay,’ Nat nods. ‘We all just need to stick close, work out who we can trust.’

Steve reached out and took hold of her ankle. ‘Are you sure this is what you want?’

‘Yes,’ she said, locking eyes with him, ‘yes.’

‘Group house!’ Clint and Sam bumped fists and Steve felt Natasha’s foot twitch a little, like it always did when she was happy.

\-----

When the Soldier woke he was always cold and confused. His body remembered being here before. He would weep a little, but his tears were always drowned when they sprayed him with cold water as he crouched naked on the tile, concrete, dirt floor.

In the desert his skin would freckle and it was like the freckles were memories rising to the surface of his body. But no answering image would rise to the surface of his mind.

In the mountains, the keening of the wind spoke to him and he answered _yes exactly like that_.

When he snapped a man’s neck, when through a scope he watched eyes snap open in blank horror as a bullet wound blossomed out of their skull, when he drove a knife through a still beating heart and saw life ebb away through an open mouth, the tightness in his chest seemed familiar – carried from another life.

\-----

Tony Stark made good on his word to make Steve a better suit.

Fury had his plan, his _Avengers_. Had his eye on the threat he’d seen coming from the stars before anyone else had. Had all the theatre prepared – so 21st century, so _superhero_.

That plan involved _Captain America_ – to win the hearts and minds on SHIELD’s home soil, to win the support of politicians from both sides of the house. So Steve was sold as everything he’d never been – all-American, steady, safe. There was the outfit for the theatre – stars and stripes. And a more practical outfit for everyday.

Natasha was Black Widow. Made more Russian than she really was. Post-Cold War alliances forged against shared enemies. Not us and them. Widows Bites, Tony gave her.

Sam was Falcon. All in it together. No matter the color of your skin. History is behind us. Tony built him better wings, built him a drone called Redwing to be his second pair of eyes in the sky.

Clint was Hawkeye. Scruffy, flannel-wearing, everyday guy, a little redneck. (Who grew up in the circus, never went to school, can hit a bullseye at 970 feet). Tony just keeps making him arrows.

And Tony was sort of in. Iron Man was in the Avengers. But Tony wasn’t in SHIELD. Steve liked that.

They’d go to New York to Stark Tower sometimes and use the specialised gym there, where Natasha could jump higher, lift more, turn somersaults launched of Steve’s shield.

‘So,’ said Tony one morning, while they were all drinking coffee in the kitchen they shared when they stayed, ‘this SHIELD thing you all work for, are they evil?’

Steve looked up with a frown.

‘Asking because the whole not selling weapons anymore was me trying not to be evil anymore.’ Tony took an obnoxious slurp of his coffee.

‘Why do you think that?’ Steve asked carefully. He was practising being more careful, these days.

‘Well,’ said Tony, putting his elbows on the table and his chin on his hands, ‘Fury seems to want me to design some big old helicarriers with the ability to kill people in an incredibly targeted way from a very big height.’

Steve drew a breath in. _Fury_. Shit.

‘Why? Why would they want to do that?’

‘Uggh,’ Tony threw up his hands. ‘That’s the _worst_ bit. They also want me to work on some AI that can identify potential threats. Seems Fury wants to get into pre-venging.’

Tony was always theatrical, but Steve could see he was genuinely uneasy. Steve could recognised the thick slick of guilt that stirred across Tony’s eyes sometimes – he felt it in his own stomach.

He exchanged looks with Nat. Clint and Sam turned to her as well. It was code for _we trust you more than us to make the right call here_.

She glared at them all, threatening and spiky despite her yellow and purple striped sweater (a gift from Clint). Then she sighed and turned to Tony.

‘Okay. We’re not sure Fury is evil, but there’s something _bad_ going on inside SHIELD. The problem with Fury is that he never sees how someone could take the weapons he builds and turn them to another use. He’s so focused on defending, _pre-venging_ –’ she used air quotes ‘– that he forgets how hard it is for one person to know they’re right.’

Tony let out a tight breath.

‘So, what I suggest,’ Natasha leaned forward and fixed her green eyes on Tony, ‘is that you do agree, but that it turns out to be harder than you thought. And that the AI has a lot of back doors for use in emergencies.’

Tony stared at her, surprisingly silent for a few moments.

‘Amazing!’ he shouted. ‘You’re the brains of this operation for sure. It means they won’t try to hire anyone else, and everyone knows I’m too arrogant to sabotage my own work. Perfect plan.’

‘Unless you’re too arrogant to sabotage your own work,’ Sam said dryly.

Tony scoffed. ‘As long as I envisage the broader plan as the actual work, we’ll be fine.’

‘We better keep reminding you,’ Clint said, heading back to the espresso machine.

‘Yes, please do,’ Tony said.

‘I’ll let Pepper know,’ Natasha said.

\-----

He woke up and he was cold and confused. His eyes were wet. He crouched shivering and naked as they sprayed him down. The floor was tiled.

Memories stirred in his breath at the smell of pine. Stirred in his blood at the sharp bite of a hair tie round his wrist. Stirred in his skin when he washed himself down in a motel shower.

His mind held only howling.

He wasn’t a whole person. Not like the people he killed, who died begging, or sobbing or raging. Not like the people who woke him, who hosed him down, who hooked him up to the chair and sent lightning through his skull.

He was just skin and bone and nerves held together with ice and string.

\-----

‘Captain,’ Fury greeted him, glaring.

Steve sat down in the chair across the desk from him. He had been lecturing, so he was dressed in chinos and a white and blue striped button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up. He ran so _warm_.

‘What’s with the beard?’ Fury growled.

Steve stared back. ‘I like it.’

‘It doesn’t fit well with the Captain America image. The politicians like you clean cut, Captain.’ Fury’s tone was terse.

Steve just regarded him coldly. ‘There’s no uniform restrictions for senior agents, Director Fury. Particularly not part-time senior special agents with fake army ranks.’

Fury narrowed his eye. ‘You’ve always been naïve Captain. You think we get all of this for free.’ He gestured at the walls around them. ‘And where do you think most of the World Security Council funding comes from? Why do you think we’re headquartered here and not in Europe, Russia, China?’

‘You assume I think all of this –’ Steve mimicked Fury’s gesture ‘– is worthwhile.’ Steve’s heart was growing warm and huge in his chest. He wrestled with his rage. _Now is not the time_ Natasha said in his head.

Fury stared at him, hard. ‘You were our brightest recruit, Steve. Chosen by Erskine for the program. You know he chose you based on your admission essay?’

‘He told me so,’ Steve tilted his head and waited.

‘We’re having some issues, Rogers.’ Fury leaned back, arms crossed over his chest. ‘Project Insight isn’t progressing as fast as we thought. It was scheduled to start in 2014. It’s already 2016. If it wasn’t Tony Stark I’d say Stark was holding things up deliberately. And we’ve had – _incidents_. Agents disappearing, being killed. Diplomats on the verge of making important commitments, scientists on the verge of breakthroughs vanishing or dying.

‘We’ve had reports of a single person. _The Soldier_ they call him. Perfect shot. As good as Agent Barton. Deadly hand to hand. And _fast_ and _strong_. Superhumanly, some say.’

Steve drew a sharp breath. The serum. Some version of it circulating. He shuddered a little – memories of nightmares where he dreamed himself made monstrous.

‘I know you have some _issues_ with SHIELD at the moment. I know we don’t see eye to eye. But this Soldier is something different. Something bad. And I think he’s just the weapon.’

Fury pulled a file from his desk and pushed it towards Steve. Old-fashioned. Not wipeable. (But burnable and shreddable).

‘All the details are in here. You and Romanov should get onto it. But tread quietly.’

Steve nodded, picked up the file and slid it into his briefcase with his laptop and lecture notes.

Fury waved his hand in dismissal and Steve stood up and left.

The next time he saw Fury he was on an operating table, heart monitor flatlining. Reports were that he was shot through the chest through his kitchen window at long range. A masked figure in black was seen running across the rooftops, making impossible leaps, then vanishing into the night.

\-----

The Soldier hid in the forest after the target was eliminated. It was so cold his bones ached, but he had been instructed to stay here, waiting. He dug a hole in the ground and covered it in branches.

He slept sometimes and dreamed. Of a tree with no leaves that couldn’t shiver in the wind.

He ate tasteless ration bars that did little to warm him, little to fill the gnawing in his stomach.

He dreamed of the color blue.

After seven days someone called him, and said there was a new mission.

\-----

Sam was on holiday. Was what he kept telling himself. He was relaxing on a beach in Tulum. With a large fruity cocktail. On a deck chair. On holiday.

He had invited Natasha to come with him. One of his occasional, gentle efforts to draw closer to her. Sam sighed and squeezed his eyes behind his glasses. She and Steve were obviously platonic soulmates. Her and Barton were spy bros, always off on some secret squirrel mission with suction arrows and high-tech equipment. They seemed to have bonded when they shot each other.

But she was always a little distant with him, curling into her oversized sweaters and gazing at him with those inscrutable green eyes. He had even crocheted her a beanie. And a scarf. And an entire blanket he hadn’t given to her yet.

Then she shied away whenever he suggested a coffee together, or a beachside vacation, for example. When they were alone in the house she retreated to her room.

He could try to fool himself, but his heart ached for her, his hands longed to braid her soft hair, his arms to wrap her up.

He was a fucking idiot who was in love with his best friend’s best friend, and she probably knew it, because she knew everything. And obviously she didn’t feel the same way.

Sam took a long sip of his cocktail and stared out at the blue-green ocean.

Someone laid down in the deck chair beside him. A middle-aged man in dark glasses, linen shorts and a blue linen shirt. He had a drink in a coconut, which Sam thought he might get next time.

‘Mr Wilson,’ the man turned to him.

Sam started out of his boozy, lovesick reverie, remembering he was a grown-ass man and not an adolescent.

‘You might not know me. My name is Phil Coulson.’ The man took a long draw on his straw.

‘ _Agent_ Phil Coulson?’ Sam asked, pushing his sunglasses down his nose and staring at the non-descript man. Coulson was a bit of a legend around the Academy, though people didn’t talk about him much at HQ. He had a reputation for escaping from the jaws of death repeatedly. Until he didn’t. On a mission somewhere in the US he’d died in an ambush. Hill had identified the body.

Hill. Sam narrowed his eyes.

‘The one and only,’ Coulson said cheerfully.

‘You’re not dead?’ Sam asked.

‘Obviously not,’ Coulson replied.

‘You’re on a beach in Mexico drinking out of a coconut.’

‘Right now I am.’

‘And more generally?’ Sam took a fortifying slurp on his own drink.

‘I’m gathering information.’ Coulson finally looked at Sam. ‘And I think you and your friends are also.’

Sam sighed. He really did want a fucking holiday. No such luck, obviously.

‘I can’t go back to the United States at the moment. For reasons.’

‘Reasons to do with being legally dead?’

Coulson tilted his head. ‘Some of the reasons are. The others are – well, maybe I should tell you a story.’

‘Can I get another drink first?’

Coulson waved to a waiter and ordered two more coconut drinks.

Sam settled in.

‘So let me get this straight,’ Clint picked up another slice of pizza. ‘Phil Coulson was _not_ killed.’

‘No,’ Sam shook his head. ‘The shipment was apparently all research that SHIELD was continuing to conduct to try to replicate Erskine’s serum, including a device that would accelerate the process to a matter of minutes rather than months. Phil and a few others knew what it was, but it was _very_ hush hush. They had to shift it all to a different facility for some reason to do with power phases. Phil thinks maybe it was bullshit to get the stuff into the open. The convoy was hijacked and all the agents were killed.’

‘Except for Phil.’

‘Except for Phil, who is apparently invincible. Hill covered it up, and made it seem like it was a different agent who’d escaped, so they’d look for the wrong person. Coulson took off overseas, and has been doing what we’ve been doing, but in Europe, Asia, the rest of the Americas.’

Natasha was daintily consuming her massive slice of pepperoni and mushroom. Sam’s heart gave a little sigh.

‘So, what does he want from us?’ she asked, licking her lips.

‘To combine forces to find the Solider. Apparently he’s been operating elsewhere. Strategic hits on military and political targets. They call him a ghost, a machine. He seems to be able to make impossible kills. He’s proved a powerful weapon for destabilisation.’

‘And then SHIELD and the Council can swoop in to restabilise,’ Steve said through gritted teeth.

He and Natasha exchanged one of their patented looks. Sam tried and failed not to feel a bit jealous. Natasha avoided his eyes more often than not.

‘Phil also has some information on some similar projects happening in Europe. In Sokovia to be precise.’

‘Supersoldiers?’ Steve asked.

Sam sighed. Steve really had to stop feeling like he was personally responsible for every superpowered person on the planet.

‘Maybe. Or maybe something else.’

‘I checked to see if SHIELD had any info, but drew a blank,’ Clint sprayed pizza out of his mouth, earning glares from everyone.

‘Hill’s worked up a cover mission in Slovenia,’ Sam pushed his own plate away, not feeling particularly hungry anymore.

Natasha finally turned and looked at him through her dark lashes, studying him.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

‘Kids. Phil said they’re experimenting on kids.’ Sam looked her straight in the eye.

When they had all gone into the Red Room, to clear it out, after Natasha had given all the intelligence to Fury, the halls, the rooms were all empty. The girls had been cleared away. Had cleared themselves away. Sam had reached out and touched Natasha’s shoulder. She leaned into him for a moment, then moved away.

That was the only reason he kept trying. When she accepted his beanie, his scarf, with a small smile, when she wore them, he thought that maybe one day she would forgive herself enough to accept his love.

\-----

They woke him up and put him on a plane. They let him sit near the window. There were clouds, and then they cleared and there were mountains. He liked seeing them from above.

This forest smelled different (from what?). There was a concrete bunker. Cells in the basement. A sense of the familiar. The terrible.

There was a girl with red hair. They brought her out and red mist curled from her fingers and into his skull.

It was worse than the lighting that made him forget.

He remembered. In a terrible instant he remembered everything all at once, felt everything all at once. A scraped knee, his first orgasm, Steve Rogers’ hands on his skin, a gun in his hands, the warmth of blood, bones snapping.

He screamed with grief and longing and fell to his knees.

‘Well, she brought the Soldier down in 22 seconds,’ a voice said in the distance.

 _Kill me_ his mind screamed.

 _No_ said the mist _the winter isn’t done_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I welcome all and any comments. (Including typo corrections! - I'm sorry my editing veers between english and US spelling, it's just too much to keep track of!). But if commenting isn't your thing that's totally fine. I really appreciate everyone who reads my fics, or parts thereof.
> 
> A few halfway reflections on this fic:  
> \- my initial idea was that this would be maybe a three parter. How I thought that would be the case is beyond me.  
> \- I promise I have left a lot of space for some comfort after all of this hurt.
> 
> Also come chat on [twitter](https://twitter.com/powerfulowl2) and/or [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/stuckyflangst). If you like my writing you might also like what I read, so I also have a dedicated [fic rec blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/stuckyflangst-fic-recs) where I write about my favourite bookmarked fics.


	7. Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winter isn't over. Not quite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update has taken a while - thank you to those who have continued to read and kudos and subscribe. There is a bit of violence of the fighting kind in this chapter.

The forest was heavy with the sodden silence of melting snow. Steve’s footsteps squelched in the freezing slush. To his right, Natasha glided across the mud and the dirty drifts of snow silently. Behind them, a strike team sloshed, Steve’s ears picking up muttered curses and snapping twigs.

Above Steve, branches reached to the sky - evergreen limbs against icy blue. Like the park in Centerville on a winter day. Like Bucky’s eyes. The weight of grief grown cold.

‘Eyes on the bunker, directly ahead,’ Sam’s voice in Steve’s ear.

‘Hawkeye, move to the high ground to the northeast,’ Steve commanded, and motioned for Natasha to move. She slipped ahead through the dark trees.

By the time Steve and the strike team burst out of the trees, Natasha was racing for the concrete bunker, three figures lying on the ground in her wake. The maw of the bunker was opening to spit out more armed, dark suited figures. Steve’s eyes flicked over them, over the clearing. They were almost indistinguishable from the strike team uniforms – missing only the SHIELD insignias on the breast patch and the back. As two of the figures fell, Steve thanked Clint’s sharp eyes and steady hand.

Steve powered forward with his shield in front of him, flipped and twisted in the air, and smashed into the middle of the group. He left the burn of his muscles, the sick thud of his shield into flesh and bone, his fist and his elbow tearing through face shields, through skin. Boots slipped and slid in the mud and the dead silence of the forest seemed to swallow the hot white scream of bullets, giving back no echoes.

Figures kept pouring out of the bunker. Steve’s body sang with the bone deep pain of battle – the bloom of bruises, the sting of bullets, the agony of electricity surging through his body from the end of a smooth black stick. He fought and everything burned around the ice at his centre.

Suddenly the flash around the clearing. A figure with silver hair pausing only for an instant. Heavy bodies of the strike team thudding to the ground.

The men around Steve drawing back; a red mist circling round him. The clearing dropped away. A woman in front of him. No armor. Just her bright red hair falling around her face. A long red coat. Her eyes like burning stars. The mist from her fingers. In his mind.

Searching. She was searching through the blind heat and pain. The smell of cypress and chlorine. The feel of soft skin. He wanted to mark that skin. Crawl inside blue eyes. Bite and claw and bruise. But with such tenderness. Such love. Such tenderness he feels as pine needles and twigs bite into his knees, Steve’s cock in his mouth, so beautiful, his hands above his head and fierce blue eyes pinning him, slender thighs encasing him, oh yes Steve please, a huge body above his, enclosing him, splitting him open so all the fear spills out and is replaced by – _oh oh oh_ –

Steve trembled and sobbed as the mist broke his heart apart along the fault lines Steve never even tried to repair, tried to glue. Just a broken cup with the pieces resting together along jagged edges. Now things he’d never seen, never known.

A figure seen through a scope across the desert why are you here too my love why and bodies torn apart how can we do this to one another how can he ever I’m a piece of shit I’m ruined but oh he touches me again with tenderness because he knows too he knows too are we both both in these ruins but not this dark night not here and I chose this didn’t I and bodies falling and the van and this isn’t this isn’t and fuck the sky is ripped open and what beasts are these what teeth elsewhere heroes fight what are we doing here to scavenge not even the dignity of vultures and fuck you I’m not anymore and darkness waking what is that what is that flesh ripped off but not like this please –

Steve cried in anguish his Bucky his Bucky what have they done to him. There mud is mixed with blood under his knees and the witch’s eyes are stars and _you can’t wait any longer_.

And Sam swooped down behind her but she just waves a hand and he plunges to the ground. Natasha has trapped a silver-haired man. Halted his lethal sprint with her bites. But the witch brushes her aside. The silver-haired man stumbles up and embraces he close and in a blur they vanish into the forest.

The clearing is littered with bodies and Steve is on his knees clutching his heart.

_You can’t wait any longer_.

He’s surrounded by death. He is death. His grief isn’t cold any longer. It burns like a star.

\-----

Natasha sat beside Steve in the quinjet. His eyes were dark with something that wasn’t there before.

She reached out and put her small hand over his, where it rested on his thigh. There was a pause and deep inside she felt the quake she always did when she reached out for Steve – the fear that he would push her away, finally realize.

But he gave a shuddering sigh and turned his hand palm up so he could interlace their fingers. He looked up at her, lines of pain etched across his forehead and around his eyes. He had things to say – she could see them lingering around his mouth like shadows.

But this wasn’t the time or the place. The remnants of the strike team around them couldn’t be trusted. She squeezed his hand to say _later_.

The engines thrummed around them and Steve clung to her, his breath rapid and pained. His body would be knitting, healing. The parts of him that could heal.

Clint sat down heavily on her other side.

‘He’s gonna be okay,’ he said to both of them. ‘But they think his arm might be broken so he’s gonna be super pissed.’

Natasha didn’t let anything show on her face. She tried not to think of Sam and his warm eyes and the gap between his teeth and the things he sometimes seemed to promise that weren’t for her. Steve had fought his way into her affections with bony elbows and spiky determination before she was old enough to understand that she didn’t deserve such devotion. She resisted the soft, solid warmth of Sam; the quick, impulsive reach of his smile.

The three of them sat in silence for the rest of the flight, Steve clutching her all the way. Natasha clutched back, like they’ve always done. When she was in the Red Room she would lie in her bed at night, writing letters to Steve she would never send. She would picture him scowling at her over a book, or arguing with her about the nature of state power.

It was too painful to think of his skinny body curled into the bed with her, both of them small and slight and filled with the same energy; the same desire to bend the world into the shape they thought it should be. Because of Steve she had dreamed a better shape, a more beautiful shape. Her hands had been forced into sculpting a more terrible form, but she had still held those dreams like pressed flowers in the pages of her mind.

And Steve had come for her, when everyone else had forgotten. She pressed their thighs closer. If they were both destined to meet these horrors, better to be together than apart.

‘It’s a real shitshow,’ Hill stared at them. Nat had narrated the mission quickly and efficiently, with the occasionally interjection from Clint, who’d had a birds eye view.

Hill’s frown was deeper these days, now Nick was gone and Sitwell had someone risen to the top of the pile as the new Director.

‘So they had _superpowers_ ,’ Hill shook her head.

‘Yeah,’ said Clint. ‘The kid was fast. Really fast. Way faster than Steve when he runs.’

‘And the woman?’ Hill asked. ‘What did she do to you Steve?’

Natasha turned to where Steve was sitting, cleaned up now in a navy t-shirt and cargo pants, hair soft from the shower. In this change rooms Natasha had gazed into her own eyes as she braided her hair tightly. Inscrutable. She knew that’s how people thought of her. She looked at her face, scrubbed bare of any makeup. Beautiful. Sexy. People used words like that too. But she looked at her pale, unvarnished face and felt nothing of the kind.

Steve stared at his hands. Considering. ‘She showed me images from my memories. Good things. And then she showed me – I don’t know – images – of terrible things happening to people I care about. Like it was real.’

His voice was low and steady. He stared Hill straight in the eyes with his Captain Rogers stare. Hill stared back. But the days were long gone when Steve Rogers would blush when caught in a lie.

_It doesn’t matter if they know you’re lying, is the thing_ , Natasha had said to him. _Just stare them down. What can they do?_

And Steve did stare them down, all crooked nose and stubborn jaw. Had been for years now. Natasha missed his furious blushing sometimes, his bursts of honesty, the way his emotions lived so close to his skin.

Hill sighed and uncrossed her arms.

‘Pierce is in town. He wants to talk to you, Captain.’

Steve’s lip curled a little but he nodded. ‘When?’

Hill looked at her watch. ‘1600 hours. You all go and get something to eat.’

She probably meant at the cafeteria, but they all headed out of the building into the carpark outside the perimeter fence. There was a van that did pierogis parked near the edge, that nobody seemed to be able to move on. The old babushka that worked in the kitchen must have some sort of deep, extremely compromising dirt on someone. Her grandson took the orders and the money, completely unimpressed by their pseudo celebrity status, distracted by his Starkphone.

They say in the middle of the shitty triangle of grass that passed for a park and ate in silence.

Finally, Steve inhaled and looked up. ‘It was Bucky, she showed me Bucky. He’s alive. And they have him.’

His face was ravaged by sharp-edged winter shadows. Natasha sighed. Trust Steve Rogers to take his high school crush and transform it into a tragic romance. She had tried setting Steve up on dates. He was beautiful, desirable, intelligent, gentle. _Too closed off. I get the sense he’s still hung up on someone else. Great fuck but I wouldn’t go there long term_.

She frowned at him. ‘Okay. But you’ve got to get through this meeting with Pierce. Just hold out. Hold out until we can regroup. He knows we’re in pieces at the moment. He wants to get in while you’re down. Do you think he knows you know about Bucky?’

Steve shook his head, pushing away his half-eaten bucket of pierogi. ‘No, he – I don’t think the witch was meant to show me that. She’s playing a – a different game.’

Natasha nodded. So powerful, this _witch_ , this woman barely more than a girl. In the red mist that hit Natasha there was a flavor of suffering, of loss that Natasha recognized. Tasted on her own tongue most mornings when she woke.

‘I’m gonna meet Hill down at the range,’ Clint said. ‘I think we need to bring her in closer. Things are coming to a head.’

Natasha nodded and Clint touched his hearing aid. It was fitted with a scrambler by Tony. Clint said it made his brain itch. At least it was purple.

They all headed back into headquarters. A young agent approached nervously in the foyer, telling Steve to go to the basement, that Pierce was waiting there. Natasha kept her face impassive while her brain screamed _why_. Why the interrogation rooms, why the basement. She squeezed his arm, for herself as much as for him.

When Steve turned away with leaden feet to go and meet Pierce, no time to discuss or form a plan or do anything but hope they could make it through today, Natasha decided to look in on Sam in the med ward.

He seemed to be sleeping when she slipped into the room, arm in a bright yellow cast. Natasha imagined him flirting with the doctor as he chose the colour, grinning in the face of his pain. When he plunged out of the sky Natasha had cried out in horror at the sickening thud as he hit the ground. _What if he’s gone?_

She found herself pulling up a seat beside him, putting her hand close to his shoulder, not quite touching. Underneath the smell of hospital – of antiseptic and starch – she could smell him. She was so tired. She rested her head on her hand, watching Sam’s chest rise and fall. She wanted to tell him – _I’m sorry, I don’t know, you don’t know what I am_ –

Instead, she shut her eyes against tears that didn’t even remember how to fall and slipped into an exhausted sleep. She woke with a gentle hand combing through her hair and warm breath on her face. Her eyelids snapped open and Sam was staring at her, eyes dark and tender. She could have sworn she meant to jerk away, but instead she let out a sob and allowed herself to be swept up against his chest, enfolded in his uninjured arm. The curve of his pectoral muscle was so strong and so soft against her cheek and his voice was low and gravelly as he said her name over and over again.

\-----

Once Natasha was out of sight, Steve leaned his arm against the wall and closed his eyes, breathing deeply. He had vomited in the shower stall. Mostly bile, sliding yellow down the drain. He still felt nauseous in the marrow of his spine. His brain struggling with containing – _Bucky_. Or some of Bucky.

Moments he had lived now existed vertiginously in his brain from two perspectives. A touch on his skin, the feel of Steve’s skin. Breaking open, being broken open. Those moments, he thought, were the proof – the proof the witch hadn’t invented the other memories. The times Steve wasn’t there.

His mind argued that those could still be a deceit. But the _feeling_ of Bucky was the same. Up until the point they hollowed him out.

Steve gagged again, fighting off the urge to heave his lunch onto the staircase.

No time. There was no time to process what she had shown him. Why. She could have just destroyed them all. What did she want from him?

Pierce. Pierce was there. In the memories. His cold blue eyes. His handsome face. _You are a great success Soldier. A better soldier than the first prototype_. An empty shell sits and stares. The Soldier.

Steve breathed through his nose and pushed open the door. One of the basement interrogation rooms. A strange place for a meeting.

Steve came to parade rest in front of Pierce, hands behind him and feet apart.

‘Don’t worry, Captain,’ Pierce’s lips curved sensuously, blue eyes glittering. ‘I’m not going to interrogate you.’

Steve looked around the windowless room – the wall of one way glass. ‘This _is_ an interrogation room,’ he pointed out.

Pierce waved a hand. He was in suit pants and shirt sleeves, no tie. He was dressed to match Steve’s level of casualness – make them equal, at ease.

‘Just a necessary precaution against prying eyes.’

Steve’s gaze flicked to the glass but he didn’t respond.

‘Captain.’ Pierce propped himself against the metal table at the centre of the room, where it was bolted to the floor. ‘I know we have differences of opinion about the role of SHIELD in the global world order, and the role you and other enhanced individuals could play in that.’

‘I didn’t think there were other enhanced individuals.’ Steve kept his feet firmly planted. ‘Until today.’

Pierce smiled again, that glitter never leaving his eyes. ‘Ah yes. The agents are already giving them nicknames, you know. Quicksilver. The Scarlet Witch.’

_Witch_. That’s what Steve had thought too, wrapped in something that felt like magic. Not just his own super strength – human but more. But something _else_ in her. With her eyes burning like stars. So distant. Lonely. He thought that those names were not ones the agents had thought of themselves.

‘But now you have seen that, Captain, I think you should come round to see my point of view. There are new threats emerging. The aliens. The mutants we have heard rumors of. These two we met today, likely enhanced by rogue terrorists. We need to be able to meet these threats.’ Pierce rose to his feet and paced across to the glass, staring into his own eyes in the mirror. ‘You know Fury was of the same view. But I fear that The Avengers initiative was too _anarchistic_.’ The word rolled of his tongue like bitter fruit.

Steve snorted. ‘Tony Stark is hardly an anarchist.’

Pierce turned with a cold smile.

‘Perhaps radical individualist is a better term.’ Pierce cocks his head. ‘You have a little of that in you too, Captain.’

Steve stared back, his stomach churning and his heart thundering in his throat. _He felt the same. He felt the same. How did you let him drift away again and again and again. Until you lost him. You lost him._

‘No?’ Pierce looked deliberately disappointed.

‘I disagreed with Fury and I disagree with you to, Mr Secretary,’ Steve kept his voice low and measured, remembering the feel of Natasha’s strong, unwavering grip in his. The wiry strength of her body. The strength of her love. ‘You’re wrong. I’m not an individualist. Everything I am rests on what other people make me. Not once, but every single day.’

‘I think, Captain, you are aware of my _vision_ for SHIELD and the World Security Council. More of it even than I have discussed with you.’ Pierce looked amused, shaking his head as if Steve was a naughty child. ‘ It is A=a vision I feel you could share in, play a role in. Surely that’s why you joined SHIELD – _to use strength and power to protect and shield people, to make the world better_.’ Pierce quoted Steve’s own essay. An entrance essay written a thousand years ago by a skinny boy who loved so much and knew so little. Who had the best thing in his arms for a moment and let it go.

Steve shook his head. ‘We’re never going to agree about your _vision_ , Secretary.’ Steve wanted to scream out _where is he what have you done to him_. He used every atom to hold himself in, to keep his quivering rage below his skin.

Pierce’s eyes burrowed deep, though, and Steve could feel himself flayed open. Pierce’s smile grew sharp teeth.

‘Well, if I can’t convince you, perhaps someone else can.’ Pierce waved a hand and the mirrored surface cleared.

And there, through the window, sat Bucky Barnes, hands resting on his thighs, hair hanging straight and limp around his clean-shaven face. He wore black tac pants and a tight black singlet. One arm shone silver.

‘Hello Steve,’ he said, voice rasping in his throat.

‘Captain, this is the Soldier.’ Pierce’s smile was huge now, like the Cheshire Cat. ‘I believe you two know one another.’

\-----

They had told him that for this mission he had a name. Names. He was the Soldier but he was also _Bucky_. Also _Sergeant Barnes._

He didn’t tell them that the name whispered in him like dry leaves against the pavement, like the sound of a bird of prey in flight in the darkness. He didn’t tell them.

They explained to him there was a Captain. His name was _Steve_.

And oh he didn’t tell them that the name whispered to him like the wind caressing his scalp, like the earth spoke through his skin when he slept on the ground, like the colour of the sky. He didn’t tell them.

They told him that he was fighting a battle for good and right and order. And none of those words spoke to him. The Captain needed to be convinced to fight this battle and he would play _Bucky_ to convince the Captain. _Steve_.

He rehearsed lines. Spoke with a voice rusted over from disuse. His mind was still empty. He was still not a person. But now he had _Steve_ and _Bucky_. Steve and Bucky. The sky, the warmth of the sun, the wing of an owl in the night.

When the glass cleared he said his line.

‘Hello Steve.’

His voice grated in his throat, despite the water they gave him to drink.

And he looked into eyes and they were the colour of the sky.

\-----

Steve couldn’t turn his head, couldn’t move. Bucky was inside him. Bucky was there in the chair. The shell. The Soldier. She had shown him. So he would know.

‘Bucky,’ he whispered.

Beside him, Pierce was still smiling. The cat who got the cream.

‘What is this?’ Steve asked, allowing his trembling to become visible, his rage to show through. ‘Are you holding him hostage? To make me – what? Support you? Support your _vison_.’ His voice dripped with loathing and despair.

Pierce tutted gently. ‘He’s not a prisoner, Captain. He’s a soldier. Our soldier.’

‘Whose?’ Steve choked. ‘Hydra’s? SHIELD’s? The Council’s’

Pierce hummed contentedly. ‘Names, organizations, don’t mean much in the end. It’s the idea. The _ideal_ of order. Safety. Protection. Isn’t that right, Sergeant Barnes?’

Bucky nodded his head slowly. ‘Yes. Steve. Yes I decided to fight for what’s right. After the war, I didn’t know what that was. But Hydra showed me. SHIELD showed me.’

His voice was husky. The words flowed out evenly, but Steve – the memory of Bucky’s lips that parted and spoke volumes even when his voice was silent fresh in his mind – Steve could hear the words echo in the emptiness behind Bucky’s eyes.

Steve couldn’t help but reach his hand out towards the glass, where Bucky sat, his head tilted a little. He was so big, Bigger than he was even after the army. His truck was thick and his shirt clung to bulging pectoral muscles. His chest looked hairless. Steve yearned for the feel of tight curls of dark chest hair under his finger. Then the metal arm. A work of art. Tony would be salivating at the intricate movements as Bucky clenched and unclenched his fists. His thighs strained against the tac pants, spreading thick as they pressed into the chair.

Steve’s body was a mess of longing and horror.

‘I want to talk to him, in person. Not through this glass.’

‘Very well.’ Pierce spoke and the door to Bucky’s cell (that was the cell, not this room they were in) opened and Rumlow entered the room. Rumlow who told him Bucky was dead.

Steve almost lost it then. Almost broke Pierce’s neck and smashed the glass with his bare hands. He pictured it. Pictured beating Brock’s face until his skull burst opened. He nearly vomited again in the face of his own terrible violence. Anchored himself to the vacant, innocent flutter of Bucky’s eyelashes, to memories he now held on trust of tenderness and a love built from an absurdly small collection of moments.

‘Come on Barnes,’ Brock gestured, and Bucky stood and followed him, steps light and lethal.

Steve waited, breath coming fast, until the door opened and Bucky stepped through, Brock behind him with a badly supressed sneer.

‘Hello Steve,’ Bucky said again. There was something in that. Something in the way he said _Steve_. Like it was a question. A flavour on his tongue he couldn’t place. His eyes were grey in the basement light. His face was neutral but something burned cold and bright in the steel of his pupils. A question.

‘Bucky, it’s –‘ Steve held out a hand. ‘I thought you were dead. _He_ told me you were dead.’ Steve nodded over Bucky’s shoulder.

‘I was injured really badly in New York. In the battle. They thought I was dead. But they used the serum to revive me. SHIELD had a version of your serum. They built me this arm.’ The words had a kind of lilting charm as Bucky’s voice warmed up. Like someone instructed him on being Bucky Barnes.

‘Brock didn’t know. It was a secret SHIELD project. Rogue elements working for Fury. Fury knew. But Brock only found out later. They didn’t know if they could trust you.’ Bucky looked at Steve’s hand, still hanging in the air between them.

‘I know I’m not quite like I was. It was the injury. I had a head injury. I couldn’t remember for a long time. But I remember now. I remember you. Remember _us_.’ The killer line, Rumlow had said, smile sharp and cruel.

_Steve_ was reaching for him. He had to take his hand. Take it with his flesh hand. Steve’s palm was warm and calloused. Bucky, Sergeant Barnes, the Soldier, had said his lines. No. Another one.

‘I knew though. I knew I could trust you.’ And he links their fingers together. No one taught him that. And this line feels right. He wants to say it again. For real this time. ‘I knew I could trust you.’

Tears were rising in Steve’s eye, in the blue. Steve’s eyelashes were dark and heavy with tears. So long. They would tickle his skin. _Bucky’s_ skin.

‘You should – you should – join the fight. For peace. For order. It’s what you always wanted Steve.’ Those words stuck in his throat. But Steve’s skin was warm. His thumb stroked over Bucky’s knuckle.

‘Can I – can I hug you Bucky?’ Steve’s voice was thick and wet. Bucky’s chest felt tight. A hug. Yes. Steve’s huge arms around him. Yes.

‘Yes, Steve, yes.’ And Steve enfolded him, pressed his cheek against Bucky’s. A sob wrenched his body and Bucky felt his shudder. His huge, strong body shudder and quake. Because of Bucky. And the Soldier didn’t know anything could feel this good. Feel this warm. Feel this soft and strong at the same time. Feel so _safe_. Maybe this is something Bucky knew. He knew. Once. He was a person. Once.

Steve’s lips moved very close to his ear.

‘It’s okay Bucky. It’s okay now. I’m here. I have you.’

Steve let himself sob. Watched the sneer grow on Rumlow’s face.

He pulled back from Bucky, still holding on to both hands. To the hand that it so familiar. And this new metal hand that whirred and hummed in Steve’s fingers. Like it knew him. Trusted him.

Pierce approached, smirk barely contained.

‘So, Captain, has your old _friend_ convinced you.’

Steve regarded Pierce and his handsome face, his fading blond hair, his terrible eyes. What if the witch hadn’t shown him? What would he think of this Bucky – this almost but not quite Bucky? Would he have noticed – shocked from grief by the return of his love? _I’m not quite the same_. What would he have said, then?

‘Of course, of course. If Bucky thinks it’s okay then –’ Steve squeezed tight on the metal hand and Bucky squeezed back. Just as strong as him. ‘I guess we can talk. I just need - I need some time.’

Pierce smiled. Victorious.

Steve held his hands so tightly.

_He has him now. Steve has him now._   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, it's been a while. Next chapter should come faster. I took on a bit too much last month.
> 
> As always, I love your comments - of any kind. Things are starting to unfold and come to a head now.
> 
> Say hi on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/stuckyflangst) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/powerfulowl2). I love to talk about writing and reading and the struggles of existence.


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